|
Archived News
11th March 2002
Summit strikes Zimbabwe deal
Rivals' Harare township rallies start final week of campaigning
'Terror teens' intimidate Zimbabwe voters
Inside the terror camp
Degrees in Violence: Robert Mugabe and the Struggle for Power in Zimbabwe by David Blair
Voters are still waiting for 5,000 local monitors
Police break up Tsvangirai briefing to ambassadors
Fears rise as Mugabe puts army in charge of poll
Zimbabwe police free 37 opposition activists after four days
Police raid MDC Mutare offices, seize property
Time for change
Volunteers needed
Mugabe's law bans votes for opposition
Opinion poll gives Tsvangirai clear lead
25p buys protection from the mobs
'All we want is food...'
Give the voters in Zimbabwe their chance to vote
More questions than answers on Zim poll
Chaos fears as Mugabe blocks poll observers
Zimbabwe observer hears tale of torture
Vote scam exposed
Mugabe’s mob burns village to rig polls
Zimbabwe media lists British 'plots'
Zimbabwe election rules still unclear
To vote in the Presidential election on the weekend of 9 and 10 March:
MDC confident despite curbs
Zanu PF seeks to divert voters with mealie-meal
Zimbabwe battens down for uneasy election
Zimbabweans see trouble ahead
Zim polls open for presidential election
Voters blame the leader who can't feed his country
How Zimbabwe's poll rules were changed to favour ruling regime
Opposition relies on huge turnout to end Mugabe era
Zimbabwe's opposition galvanized by violence
Top Zanu-PF man wants new rulers
Growing pressure on government to extend voting beyond Sunday
'I don't care if they beat me. I'm going to vote for change'
Tsvangirai faces moment of truth
URGENT NOTICE
Zimbabwe vote 'extended'
Mugabe running out of time after judge extends poll
Top MDC officials arrested
Voters defiant in Mugabe heartland
'We won't move from here till we vote'
Mugabe's rural voters shun polling stations
Top
From BBC News, 4 March
Summit strikes Zimbabwe deal
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo says a deal has been reached at the Commonwealth summit in Australia on the question of Zimbabwe. Mr Obasanjo told the BBC that a three-member committee would be set up comprising himself, his South African counterpart Thabo Mbeki and the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard. He said Zimbabwe would not be suspended from the Commonwealth before next weekend's presidential election. But, after the election, the new committee will consider the report of the Commonwealth's election observers and take action against Zimbabwe if they think it is necessary. Commonwealth leaders meeting in Coolum, Queensland, have been divided over calls for punitive action against Zimbabwe and the issue has overshadowed all other topics at the summit.
The BBC's Diplomatic Correspondent, Barnaby Mason, says it is a careful compromise with no commitment to take any particular action. The three-member body will have the power to suspend Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth. "This has not been an easy issue, strong views are held," said Mr Howard. Britain has been pressing for the suspension of Zimbabwe over political violence in the run up to the presidential elections. President Obasanjo said there had been long discussions among Commonwealth leaders but a consensus had been reached. Significantly, he said, Zimbabwe had been party to the agreement. President Obasanjo said there had been no winners or losers.
Commonwealth leaders have been holding informal talks on the issue of Zimbabwe and the human rights record of President Robert Mugabe. States such as Britain and Australia have been urging Zimbabwe's suspension from the body. But, with Tanzania and Namibia opposing any discussion of the issue at all, the conference had at times resembled a black-white divide. On Sunday, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien held talks with UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, Mr Mbeki and Mr Obasanjo. He promised a "mechanism for a quick decision" once election observers reported their conclusions. Zimbabwe's Information Minister, Jonathan Moyo, described Britain's stance as "disgraceful" when he made an impromptu appearance at the summit. President Mugabe himself has reportedly called on Mr Blair to keep his "pink nose" out of Zimbabwe's affairs.
Top
From The Independent (UK), 4 March
Rivals' Harare township rallies start final week of campaigning
Harare/Matabeleland - The two main contenders in this week's presidential elections in Zimbabwe took their battle for votes to the capital yesterday. Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, spoke to a crowd of about 20,000 supporters in the poor township of Highfield in southern Harare. During the four-hour rally, MDC supporters dressed in colourful uniforms whistled and cheered while their leaders slated the ruling Zanu PF party. President Robert Mugabe, who turned 78 last month, held his final big Harare rally in Mbare, the capital's oldest township. Speaking to about 4,000 mainly subdued supporters, his speech centred on criticism of Tony Blair. "How can the British Prime Minister, with a history of interacting well with his former colonies, behave like a street kid?" Mr Mugabe screamed. "He shows poor judgement, poor intellect and poor relations and that's what we criticise. He's a young politician with no political background compared to us. He still has lots to learn."
In stark contrast, Mr Tsvangirai's last rally in Highfield, the birthplace of black nationalism in the 1950s and 1960s, was marked by music and dancing. Condemning violence, the MDC leader promised reparations for victims of state violence. "We will pay reparations when there has been justice, but there can only be justice after we have set up a Truth and Justice Commission and the truth is discovered," Mr Tsvangirai said. The rallies came six days before Zimbabweans go to the polls in the first real challenge to Mr Mugabe's 22-year-old iron grip over the electorate. The campaign has been marked by Zanu PF's violent methods, sometimes forcing the MDC to campaign underground.
The MDC suffered a setback two days ago when the Supreme Court ruled that voters would have to cast their ballots in constituencies where they are registered. The ruling mainly affects MDC supporters who have been forced to flee their homes after violence by ruling party militants. More than 400,000 farm workers and their families are thought to have been driven from their homes by "war veterans" who have invaded commercial farms in the past two years, encouraged as a vote-winning tactic by Zanu PF. A recent Commercial Farmers' Union survey found that 70,000 farm workers - a quarter of 300,000 people employed on 4,000 white-owned farms have been displaced. With each worker supporting on average five family members, this number soars to 420,000, a conservative figure since only half the farmers surveyed responded.
Zimbabwe's Human Rights Forum estimates another 70,000 people have been displaced by mostly Zanu PF harassment and violence since January last year. The burning of more than 1,000 homes and 30,000 incidents of violence in the past 12 months indicates the scale of the problem. "The situation is terrible," says Learnmore Jongwe, director of information for the MDC. "Many of these people have left home after being harassed or assaulted by Zanu PF supporters for testifying in MDC court challenges arising out of the 2000 elections. They are unable to return to their villages or families. We've only been able to help a handful of them. Some are living in parks, others with relatives, others in rented accommodation - and many are totally destitute." Others have been attacked for simply favouring the MDC, nearly 100 of whose supporters have died in political violence. At a hide-out in a local town, an elderly white farmer who fled his land under threat of death from more than 50 invaders told me: "Generations of my family worked for what we will most definitely lose if Mr Mugabe stays in power. Our only hope lies with Mr Tsvangirai."
Top
From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 4 March
'Terror teens' intimidate Zimbabwe voters
Bulawayo - Raymond Pidi is a tall, rail-thin, 18-year-old Matabele boy, dressed in ragged clothes. He is the sort of scruffy, down-at-heel young man you see in most African cities. Like so many of his generation of Zimbabweans he has been unemployed since he left school five years ago. Piri is one of Robert Mugabe's youth militia, the so-called "terror teens" who have been running wild through the country since late last year, beating, threatening and killing people who do not support the president and the ruling party. There is a look in his eyes that suggests he has seen things a teenager should not see. At a secret location in Bulawayo, he agreed to talk because he says he does not support the president's Zanu PF party and wants to escape the cycle of violence into which he has been coerced.
There are between 20,000 and 50,000 members of Mugabe's teenage militia, gathered in an estimated 120 camps across the country. Their recruitment and training has been organised by government ministers and logistical support has been provided by the Zimbabwean Army. Pidi was one of 37 Matabele youths from the Gwanda area in southern Matabeleland recruited by so-called war veterans for militia training at the beginning of the year. The recruits had been told to bring with them axes, clubs and whips. They were instructed on how to set up roadblocks and abduct and assault anyone they found who was not carrying a Zanu PF party card. They were told that they should not trust white people. Although he said he had not taken part in beatings, he said he witnessed many and that victims were so seriously assaulted they had to be taken to hospital. "I did not like it but if I had not joined they would think I am MDC and they might have killed me," he said.
The first teenage militia groups were formally passed out at the Border Gezi training camp, in the presence of Mr Mugabe, last November. Since then the gangs have operated mainly at night, targeting suburbs of the major cities and villages, warning their victims that if they voted for the opposition MDC's leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, the militias would return and kill them. Observers believe that large sections of the community have been so intimidated by the militias that they are unlikely to turn up at the polling stations next weekend.
Top
From The Guardian (UK), 2 March
Inside the terror camp
Zimbabwe has banned the BBC but John Sweeney spent two weeks there, secretly filming witnesses to torture and mass murder Outside, a car pulls up, a door slams. Silence. There are six of us in the room, three black, three white. Michael, our eyewitness, a torture victim who helped bury some of 300 bodies he saw; his brother, also tortured; the translator whose father has been kidnapped and is almost certainly dead; the owner of the house whose lover has been framed by the police for something he didn't do; and two of us from the BBC, which is banned. All six would be a catch for the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO). Robert Mugabe would be delighted. A twitch of a curtain. The gardener, who is keeping watch at the front of the safe house in the cathedral-quiet white suburbs of Bulawayo, turns and gives a Queen Mum wave of the hand. It's a neighbour returning from shopping. False alarm. Michael continues his story in Ndebele.
"I buried them in the toilet pits," he says. "Some people were beaten even if they did not have any reason to beat you up. When they realised that one man was nearly dying they would order us, the other detainees, to bury that one. We would throw him in a pit even when he was still alive." Michael worked very hard at digging the toilet pits and dumping the bodies, lest they kill him too. Most of them had been beaten unconscious. But some had been tortured - electric shock, rape, mutilation. They would force people to climb trees, the higher the better, and so many were crammed on to a branch that it began to sag and creak. Then they would club people still on the ground, forcing them up, and they would push the people on the outmost branches further and further out. Then the branch would snap and the people would fall to the ground, some just bruised, some with broken legs, some dead. Or they would force five people into a sewage pipe and smash rifle butts into either end, forcing those on the outside to punch and kick and squeeze themselves inwards, crushing the "piggy-in-the-middle" to death.
All of that happened long ago, in 1984, at Bhalagwe camp, the base for the Fifth Brigade, trained by the North Koreans, during the "Gukurahundi". It's a Shona expression meaning "the rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains". But no one talks about it, in the open. Michael has never spoken before to anyone outside his immediate family about what he witnessed. He suffers from nightmares: he was beaten and has the scars to prove it. If at some time in the future scientists, archaeologists and pathologists were to dig up Bhalagwe camp, would they find the bones? "Yes," he says, "they will find them." How many bones? How many buried? "I don't know as the bones might disintegrate into the earth. I personally saw about 300 dead bodies."
Two men offered to take us to the camp, one white, one black. They both risked a very great deal to do so. At the camp, there wasn't much left. A few brick guard houses, roofless. Shards of asbestos crackled underfoot, the remains of pens - the kind of thing in which you would keep pigs in England - into which up to 60 people were crammed. Michael remembered: "The idea was that when you were sleeping, if one person wakes up, the whole line will be aware, because it was possible for people to escape. If they did manage to escape, the person nearest them would be tortured and they assumed you knew how he escaped.' In the middle of the camp is an ornamental pond in the shape of Zimbabwe and around it a cluster of 10 big holes in the ground. The bones never lie, they say. But Robert Mugabe's killers aren't taking any chances. At some point between Michael dumping the dead and dying in the grave pits in 1984 and a few weeks ago, someone has gone back to Bhalagwe camp and dug up the remains of the murdered and dumped the bones elsewhere, leaving the holes in the ground. But the grave-tamperers didn't even bother to fill in the exhumed graves. A motorbike coughed in the near distance. Our two guides, producer/cameraman Will Daws and I stopped dead. Our cover - that we were English bird-watchers on holiday in Zimbabwe - might not last a cursory examination from the CIO. But beneath our feet was more than enough evidence to start a war crimes investigation against Mugabe for his part in the killing of up to 20,000 people. The motorbike coughed again, further off, and we carried on filming.
The national treasurer of the opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change, Fletcher Delini is an elderly Christian, who suffers from diabetes, a gentle man with a slight frame and - according to Mugabe's police - a double murderer. Delini was charged last November and spent a month in one of Zimbabwe's grim prisons. They didn't give him proper treatment for his diabetes, his blood sugar count went higher than 20 and he started losing the sight of his one remaining eye. There is one problem with the case against him. Delini was 500km away on the day that he was allegedly plotting his double murder in Bulawayo. Among his alibi witnesses are 20 MPs and the speaker of the house of parliament. Stephen Chasara was also picked up and questioned for his part in the Bulawayo double murder plot. He has never been to Bulawayo, he told us. But he is active in the MDC and they tortured him. They beat him on the soles of his feet and cut his back with whips. He still limps, his legs still bandaged. Photographs of his back and feet taken immediately after his torture are sickening evidence that corroborates his story in every particular. "If you scream, they only beat you more," he said. And he made the sound you have to make when you are in great pain but cannot scream. It was a long, slow swan's hiss of suppressed agony unbearable to listen to. Can we film your face, use your name, we asked. "Yes, show my face." Chasara drew us a map of where he had been tortured. It turned out to be the CIO office inside Harare Central police station. So we set off to film it. The angle was difficult and Will had to mess about with the secret camera right in front of the torture centre. Mistake. A man driving in a car - perhaps an off-duty CIO goon - rumbled us, shouting out: "Is that a camera?" We made our excuses and left.
To interview the leader of the opposition, Morgan Tsvangirai, was not easy. His home is watched by the CIO. Last June they deported me for the crime of working for the BBC. They had marked my card on that trip so the return journey was a bit dodgy. Had the police stopped a car going into Tsvangirai's home a few days ago and opened the boot they would have been surprised to see me huddled up, mumbling into a night-vision camera. The car stopped, the boot opened. It was Tsvangirai. They have tried to assassinate him twice; shot at him and charged him with treason. He said he felt threatened, not afraid, and it was support of the ordinary people that kept him going. He only lost his composure once, when I asked him about his reaction to the murder of Tichoana Chiminya, his election agent for the parliamentary election in 2000. "I received it with disbelief. I was flying across to Europe, to America. Someone phoned me on the plane [to say] that Tichoana had been killed. I felt helpless, felt a part of me had gone because he was that close to me. But then ever since those kind of instances, we've had constant reports of killings, muggings, displacements and every day provincial leaders phone me, 'so-and-so has been beaten, he's in hospital'. And after a few days, he's dead."
Who is going to win the election? If you count the posters, Mugabe. We criss-crossed Zimbabwe from west to east and back again, thousands of kilometres, and we didn't see a single Tsvangirai poster. But that is because you can be put in gaol, even killed if you put one up. But a straw poll of every petrol-station attendant en route told a different story. They were all going to vote for Tsvangirai. I met no one who planned to vote for Mugabe. He has lost Matabeleland, because of the 20,000 murdered in the Gukurahundi. He has lost the cities because of the corruption. Now he is losing the countryside even in his own heartland, Mashonaland. He has also lost some of the police. An MDC friend was caught by a police officer with a bag containing hundreds of thousands of Zimbabwe dollars and 100 MDC red cards. The policeman clocked the lot, said "Very good, sir" and flagged him on. Mugabe has even lost some of the CIO.= Shortly before one opposition MP was raided, he got three calls from different CIO officers, telling him he was going to be raided.
But will the election be fair? Or, rather, how unfair is the election going to be? The story of Chiminya's murder tells you much about that. In April 2000, shortly after nightfall, he was driving in a MDC pick-up, organising a rally for the next weekend in Tsvangirai's constituency. He was chased by a pick-up truck full of Mugabe's party, the Zanu PF, and driven by a CIO hood called Joseph Mwale. In the front of the MDC pick-up were three people, Sanderson Makombe, Talent Mabika and Chiminya. The sole survivor, Makombe, told us that Mwale blocked the road, leapt out and then started smashing Chiminya in the face with the butt of a rifle. He hit Mabika, a young woman activist, who was sitting next to him. Makombe kicked his way out of the window on the other side of the pick-up and ran off into the bush. The story is taken up by a second witness, who was in the back of the Zanu PF pick-up. He saw Mwale douse the unconscious Chiminya and Mabika with paraffin, and then the whole car burst into flames. From the bush, Sanderson saw two balls of fire lighting up the night sky. Chiminya died straight away, Mabika after hours of agony in which she managed to identify the killers. Tsvangirai lost that election.
Zimbabwe's police have not been able to track down Mwale, which is odd because he works in the CIO office inside Chimanimani police station. In that town, in the far east of the country, he is known as the petrol bomb man. He has threatened one MDC supporter with castration. Mugabe is making sure the votes are going to be counted correctly. He has asked the CIO - men like Joseph Mwale - to assist in the smooth running of the election. Just in case.
Top
From ZWNEWS, 4 March
Degrees in Violence: Robert Mugabe and the Struggle for Power in Zimbabwe by David Blair
A new book on Zimbabwe has been published. Enquire at your local bookstore, or at www.amazon.co.uk. This book is probably not available in Zimbabwe...
Robert Mugabe is a unique figure among African leaders. Having led the struggle against colonial rule, he has held office uninterruptedly since independence. Now, after 21 years of dominance, Mugabe is waging a bitter struggle to hold power against an opposition born from the spiralling economic and social collapse of Zimbabwe. This timely and compelling book tells the story of Zimbabwe from the hopeful era of new independence to the present reality of petrol queues, food riots and a terror campaign waged by Mugabe supporters. David Blair is a staff foreign correspondent of the Daily Telegraph. Born in Malawi in 1973 he grew up in Lesotho and began working as a journalist in Uganda. He was recently named Young Journalist of the Year by the Foreign Press Association. He was forced to leave Zimbabwe in June 2001 as Robert Mugabe's government sought to silence the media. He left a country in turmoil, gripped by a ferocious battle for power.
Top
From The Times (UK), 5 March
Voters are still waiting for 5,000 local monitors
Harare - With only four days to go to Zimbabwe’s presidential election, nothing has been seen of up to 5,000 local monitors who are supposed to be overseeing it. A month ago Patrick Chinamasa, the Justice Minister, said that the monitors, who had been drawn from civic organisations such as churches and professional associations, were being accredited, but they have yet to appear in the troubled townships and rural areas, where violence is reported daily. The monitors are supposed to have been drawn from 70 organisations, some closely allied with President Mugabe’s Zanu PF party. Indeed, churches say that individual names that they have put forward have been subject to intense scrutiny by Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organisation, causing delays. Yet so far the Electoral Supervisory Commission, headed by a recently retired Zimbabwean Army Brigadier, Douglas Nyikaramba, has been silent about the accreditation of any local observers, while announcing every incoming batch of foreigners.
Brigadier Nyikaramba’s nomination caused questions to be asked in Parliament by MPs from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, who questioned his objectivity. It also aroused ripples of amusement his name means "The country has refused". A month ago the commission announced that 40 "trainers" had instructed 1,080 supervisors how to train a further 22,000 locally recruited subordinates to monitor the election. President Mugabe has banned all foreigners from serving as monitors, as in past elections. They usually arrive in Zimbabwe with considerable experience of how to conduct their duties. The MDC claims that soldiers and officials linked to the ruling party are being recruited to run the election in place of teachers, who have played a large part in the past, but this has not been confirmed.
Officials were unable yesterday to give a clear picture of the number of foreign observers who are now in Zimbabwe under a plethora of official umbrellas. South Africa, for example, has personnel present under its 50-member official "observer mission", as part of a 20-strong parliamentary group, with an "election support network" and with various regional bodies. Since the expulsion of Pierre Schori, the European Union mission chief from Sweden, and the withdrawal of the rest of his team, a 25-strong group from Norway has been the only European delegation in the country. The EU was told that its observers might remain under the aegis of a delegation of the African, Caribbean and Pacific states, but only four observers representing the ACP are known to have arrived, two from Namibia and two from Sudan.
There is a group from the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC), which has sent 39 MPs and 17 support staff to observe in the name of its "Parliamentary Forum", and an unconfirmed number of observers for the SADC Electoral Support Network and the SADC Electoral Commission. The African Union was expected to send a substantial team, but its arrival has not yet been announced. Some African states, such as Tanzania, which has dispatched 24 monitors, and Botswana, which has sent four, have their own individual national teams. Indonesia, which has in the past expressed sympathy for President Mugabe, has sent a three-member team. The different states and groupings are likely to give widely differing verdicts, offering enormous scope for rival candidates to claim objective international backing for their view of the proceedings.
Top
From The Guardian (UK), 5 March
Police break up Tsvangirai briefing to ambassadors
Harare - Zimbabwean police cut short a meeting yesterday between foreign diplomats and the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, who was briefing them on his plans if he wins the election against President Robert Mugabe this weekend. About 30 foreign envoys went to a Harare hotel to hear Mr Tsvangirai describe his plans for a transition to a government by his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), if he wins the March 9 and 10 presidential election. But soon after the briefing began, Mr Tsvangirai was called out by police and he returned to inform the diplomats that the meeting had been declared an illegal gathering under Mr Mugabe's new Public Order and Security Act. The diplomats dispersed, but many were outraged. "We have the right and the duty under the Vienna convention to talk to political forces when we think it's appropriate," said the Spanish ambassador, Javier Sandomingo. Other diplomats said the police action was a blatant display of the Mugabe government's efforts to suppress Mr Tsvangirai at every turn.
Opinion polls show that Mr Tsvangirai has support from nearly 70% of voters and has a real chance of unseating Mr Mugabe, who has held power for 22 years. International observers saw evidence yesterday of state-sponsored violence near the second city of Bulawayo, a centre of support for Mr Tsvangirai. Residents of St Paul's village showed observers the results of an attack on Sunday they said was carried out by pro-government militants, saying five people were wounded and six homesteads destroyed. Bulawayo police inspector Manzini Moyo told observers from the Commonwealth, South Africa and Norway that he was aware of the attack but he declined to give further details. Witnesses said about 600 youths wearing T-shirts of the ruling Zanu PF party rampaged through the settlement, wielding sticks, clubs and axes. The MDC says at least 107 of its members and supporters have died in political violence over the past two years.
Top
From The Sydney Morning Herald, 5 March
Fears rise as Mugabe puts army in charge of poll
Harare - President Robert Mugabe has handed control of this weekend's presidential election and vote count to the army, compounding fears that his government's campaign of mass intimidation will continue up to the ballot box and that widespread vote tampering will be used to try to keep him in power. Revelations that the election has fallen under the control of the military, just weeks after army chiefs threatened to stage a coup in the case of an opposition victory, will add to the pressure for the world to take a firm stand against Mr Mugabe. With just four days to go before polling stations open, the growing evidence that the election is already deeply flawed will reinforce pressure by Britain and other Commonwealth countries to put pressure on Zimbabwe's neighbours to declare the results void if Mr Mugabe claims victory.
Almost every aspect of the vote, including the handling of ballot boxes, is in the hands of a retired army colonel, Sobusa Gula-Ndebele. Mr Mugabe quietly appointed him head of the Electoral Supervisory Commission a few days after the military high command made the coup threat. Colonel Gula-Ndebele has in turn appointed Brigadier Douglas Nyikayaramba chief elections officer, the second most important post. The Government says Brigadier Nyikayaramba retired from the army a few weeks ago, but sources say he is merely on leave. In recent weeks soldiers have been appointed to all levels of the election process. The electoral commission has also recruited "war veterans", who have led the often violent invasions of farms and been instrumental in the campaign of terror against Mr Mugabe's opponents, and members of the feared Central Intelligence Organisation to work alongside the soldiers. The military's infiltration of the electoral process means that soldiers, war veterans and ruling party officials responsible for a two-year government campaign of violence will be inside almost every polling station. In some cases, they will be "helping" voters to mark their ballots.
At the heart of Mr Mugabe's strategy to cling to power is the perpetual violence begun by the war veterans who led the farm invasions and now extended to towns and villages by the ruling Zanu PF's private militia, the National Youth Service Brigade. In Mashonaland, where Mr Mugabe must do well to stand any hope of winning the election, villagers have been ordered to take advantage of a provision that allows an election official to help them vote if, for instance, they are illiterate. Zanu PF militia members will be outside to deal with anyone who does not ask for help. A human rights lawyer, Tawanda Hondora, said there was no doubt the attacks on the vote were co-ordinated towards one end: getting Mr Mugabe re-elected, however illegitimately. "Look at the high incidence of violence, look at the creation of the Zanu PF youth militia and that the war veterans have not been arrested for violence. Look at the number of people who have been tortured, disappeared or whose homes have been destroyed. What else can you conclude?"
Top
From AFP, 4 March
Zimbabwe police free 37 opposition activists after four days
Harare - Police in Zimbabwe on Monday released 37 opposition activists arrested Thursday during a police raid in which nine other officials were injured, their lawyer said. "They (police) just said they will proceed by way of summons but they did not formally charge anyone," said Simbarashe Muzenda, who was representing the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters. The group, including several women, had been held for 96 hours without appearing before a court, although the law stipulates that suspects must not be detained for more than 48 hours without a court appearance. Muzenda said the police were initially contemplating levelling charges of public violence against the group after a supporter of the ruling Zanu PF was assaulted Thursday in a working-class suburb of Harare. But the complainant failed to identify her assailants among the suspects, Muzenda said. Muzenda said the 37 had several complaints against the police, including assault, overcrowding in holding cells, being denied access to their relatives and lawyer, and generally unhygienic conditions in the cells. "Among them was a lady who was nursing an infant that turned one month on Friday, March 1. She had no food and no provisions for the baby," Muzenda said, adding that the detainees also included a 67-year-old woman.
Top
From The Daily News, 4 March
Police raid MDC Mutare offices, seize property
Mutare - The police in Mutare last Wednesday night stormed the MDC offices and seized property worth thousands of dollars. MDC officials, including Pishai Muchauraya, the party spokesman in Manicaland, were placed under house arrest for more than 15 hours. The property seized included 210kg bag of maize-meal meant to feed about 8 000 people displaced by political violence, and 828 cans of spray paint. Earlier this month, the police raided the same offices, saying they were searching for arms of war. On Wednesday night six armed policemen surrounded the MDC offices. Muchauraya said upon seeing them, the MDC officials locked themselves in one of the offices. Five policemen, two of them armed with AK47 rifles, were standing guard in front of the offices when The Daily News crew arrived at the scene. Election observers from South Africa and Norway were at a loss for words at the police action. The MDC members only opened the doors after journalists and the international observers arrived. On Thursday, reinforcements, including Central Intelligence Organisation officers, were deployed at the offices, this time armed with a search warrant. They confiscated a camera. A policeman, who identified himself as Assistant Inspector Nyamukova, said: "All we want is Muchauraya’s camera because he took pictures of us yesterday and today."
Top
Comment from The Financial Gazette, 28 February
Time for change
When the history of the first 22 years of Zimbabwean independence comes to be written, one explanation the failure of governance will dominate. Lesser themes the naivete and incompetence of the donor community, its willingness to reward failure and venality, and the short-sightedness and greed of many in the private sector will not be ignored. But the overriding message is that governance or in Zimbabwe’s case, misgovernance trumps all.
In 20 years to 2000, Zimbabwe received net inflows of some US$5.9 billion of foreign aid. In current dollars, this inflow, offset marginally by US$300 million in net outflows of private capital, was associated with a US$500 million increase in Zimbabwe’s GDP. In current dollars, over a 20 year period, US$11 of foreign aid was needed to increase GDP by just US$1. It is easy to say that these numbers show that aid does not work. But they show something much more fundamental too namely that the payoff from aid and investment, domestic as well as foreign, is undermined when governance goes awry. Not that this is a lesson confined to Zimbabwe. Countries with richer natural resource endowments than Zimbabwe Angola, Nigeria, Zambia and the DRC all fit the same mould, where misgovernance overwhelmed economics.Hopefully, this lesson will not be lost on voters when they go to the polls on March 9/10. There can have been few elections in which the issues were more clear-cut.
On one side is the MDC with policies designed to restore the rule of law, return the country to international respectability and revive the economy, through the efficient implementation of essentially orthodox, economic policies. Provided it gets governance right, the MDC can deliver access to the foreign aid, investment and debt restructuring, without which there can be no sustained economic recovery. On the other is Zanu PF with a 22-year track record of sustained failure. Per capita incomes today are no higher than 30 years ago and 25 percent below their peak. Inflation at 116.7 percent is the highest in Africa, barring the DRC. The UNDP-compiled Human Development Index is lower than in 1985. Real spending per head on education and health has declined. Life expectancy has fallen precipitously to only 40 years, largely due to the country’s exceptionally high adult infection rate of HIV-AIDS the second highest in the world.
That a presidential candidate with a track record of such comprehensive failure is seeking a further six years at the helm to complete the immiserization of Zimbabweans highlights Zanu PF’s policy and moral bankruptcy. Socially and economically, the party has nothing to offer. The Mugabe manifesto is a voyage into a discredited past- bereft of any understanding of what is needed to confront the crises that he and his party have created. What failed before will fail again - the command economy, state ownership, price controls, and a growth path reliant upon technologically backward, small-scale agriculture. The same government that abandoned free health and education a decade ago, when it found it could not pay, is again promising to deliver these lofty goals. A million new homes will be provided by the same politicians who promised "housing for all by 2000".
Arguably, the challenge facing the next administration will be even more taxing than that of the first post-independence government in 1980. Then, the world was a less complicated place. The donors and foreign investors were more gullible, willing to support governments whose policies had no chance of success. How else does one explain the IMF, World Bank and donor determination to throw good money after bad in Zambia under Kaunda, the DRC under Mobutu and Tanzania under Nyerere?. Today, that has changed replaced by a broad consensus that unless governments are prepared to don the Golden Straitjacket of economic orthodoxy and good governance, aid and investment will be wasted. Remarkably, the rules of the game that are taken pretty much for granted worldwide low levels of government borrowing, positive real interest rates, competitive exchange rates, privatisation, respect for the rule of law and property rights, openness to foreign trade and investment - are seen even by many Zimbabwean businesspeople, as well as the governing elite, as some kind of socio-economic heresy.
Where else in the world do businessmen and politicians seriously argue that interest rates 85 percent blow the inflation rate are good for the economy? Who believes as does Zanu-PF that price controls will increase the supply of goods on the shelves? Where else do policymakers claim that an official exchange rate, pegged for 17 months at Z$55 to the US dollar, during which time consumer prices have more than doubled, is in the national interest? Why do so many in business, especially the accountancy profession, as well as in government, prefer taxbreaks, investment incentives, and assorted handouts, to macroeconomic stability and a level playing field? The sorry answer to such questions is that such policies are tailor-made for those well positioned to exploit the situation. Zanu PF economic mismanagement has opened the door to hundreds of sweetheart deals, conducted in the most opaque of markets. Open, transparent, competitive markets and good governance are anathema to the crony businesses and banks who daily exploit the poor and the marginalised, while vociferously pointing the finger of "economic sabotage" at orthodox business.
The day of reckoning cannot now be long delayed. A vote for Mr Mugabe is a vote for an economic and social cul-de-sac that would guarantee economic implosion, international pariah status, and an acceleration of the 23 percent decline in per capita incomes that Zanu PF has engineered since 1998. A Mugabe victory would accelerate the return to a subsistence economy, the exodus of skills and capital and the expansion of the informal sector, which the president and his entourage see as some kind of economic utopia. A vote for Mr Tsvangirai offers the prospect of a return to soundly-based economic growth; exploiting, not exporting, the country’s skills and capital. It offers the chance of bringing in the foreign capital so necessary to exploit country’s resources in agriculture, mining, tourism, industry, services and above all, in the hundreds of thousands of people people left in limbo and poverty by 22 years of Zanu PF misrule. Today, fewer than one person in ten has a job in the formal economy little more than half the figure of 20 years ago. Governance is the critical element in the development mix. Our candidate is tried and tested, claims Zanu PF. Indeed, - tried, tested and found wanting on almost every count. It is time for change.
Top
From the MDC, 24 February
Volunteers needed
We need further volunteers to: be polling agents from 8 11 March; to drive polling agents; to feed polling agents; to donate fuel and the use of vehicles; to assist with administration, telephone support, radio networks, computers, etc.
The polling agents will need to be available from 8 11 March, and be present at the polling station throughout this period for 24 hours a day, as well as making sure the box is delivered intact to the counting station. The polling agent’s role is to observe, report back to the central teams whether there are any irregularities, to physically follow the ballot box to the counting centres and to wait with the box until it is opened so that s/he can verify that there has been no rigging of the vote. Since the recent changes to the Electoral Act prevent polling agents and monitors from travelling with the ballot boxes, we also need to assist polling agents and monitors to get to and from all polling stations throughout the country.
During the last election there was no violence at all during the voting period, and no comeback on volunteers in any areas. We do not expect any violence during the voting period this year. If you feel unsafe in your area, please volunteer to go to another area. Volunteers will be linked to a central support system with access to international observers, the press and there will be a reaction team in each constituency. Contact details: fax: 751 273; eMail, tel: 011 231 925 and 091 307 423
Top
From The Times (UK), 6 March
Mugabe's law bans votes for opposition
Harare - Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and civic groups have launched a last-minute bid to stop what they say is a full-scale attempt by President Mugabe's regime to "steal" presidential elections this weekend. At the same time, Mr Mugabe issued an edict yesterday to reinstate laws that will simplify vote-rigging by authorities and restrict scrutiny by monitors of the voting and counting procedures. The law was struck down by a court last week because it had been bulldozed illegally through Parliament. Another court ruling, to stop authorities from stripping non-citizens of the vote, was also overthrown by the edict. "It is a disgrace," advocate Adrian de Bourbon, the head of the Zimbabwe Bar Association, said. "It overrules the Supreme Court. The President is one of the candidates and he is changing the rules. It is breaking the law." David Coltart, the MDC legal director, said: "The aim is to rig the poll, it’s as simple as that."
Amid new signs of a strong surge of support for Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC leader, particularly as food shortages bite, a barrage of confusing new electoral regulations has been rushed through by the government. "The process is opaque," Michael Davies, a civic leader, said. "It exposes how corrupt and venal the Registrar General’s office is. They have no intention of facilitating the democratic process, but only of undermining it." Diplomats say that Mr Mugabe is effecting a strategy to prevent a high turnout of voters in areas where Mr Tsvangirai is heavily supported, particularly in cities and towns. It is also targeting specific groups likely to support Mr Tsvangirai, such as whites and refugees, by denying them their right to vote. Authorities are refusing to issue a copy of the voters’ roll, while continuing to register new voters in strongholds of the ruling Zanu PF party, according to opposition officials.
Tobaiwa Mudede, the Registrar-General, ordered voter registration to close in October. "The reports came in that they were still registering people," Mr Coltart said. "Suddenly we see there is a proclamation last week that voter registration had been extended to March 3. Of course they are registering Zanu PF. It’s been going on in the northeast of the country (the ruling party’s heartland). No one is being registered in the south." Soldiers and police all over the country are being ordered to vote by postal ballots, even though most of them are serving in areas where they are registered to vote, he said. "We have affidavits from officers that each police station in the country has been given a list of all police officers on the voters’ roll," Mr Coltart said. "They are being called in and told to apply for a postal ballot and they then have to vote in the presence of their commanding officer, without any secrecy. It’s exactly the same in the army."
An appeal against these moves was made in the Supreme Court yesterday. The action was also attempting to block the office of the Registrar-General from effecting a radical redistribution of polling stations that will heavily favour Mr Mugabe. The number of polling stations in urban areas, where Mr Tsvangirai draws most of his support, have been drastically reduced to the point where they will be incapable of handling a heavy turnout. The number of rural polling stations have been increased. Mr Mudede said on state television last week that the new distribution provided 40-50 polling stations in each constituency. Yet in the Harare constituency of Hatfield, there are only four. The most any constituency in the capital has is 13. "In many instances its going to be physically impossible to process voting for the people who turn up," said Bev Clark, head of a charity that has been lobbying for voters’ rights. There is also evidence of widespread removal of likely MDC voters from the roll. Last month an MDC council candidate collected the signatures of ten supporters, needed to endorse his nomination. All of them had previously checked their names were on the voters’ roll. When the list was handed in, the names of all ten had been removed from the Registrar-General’s copy of the new, and unpublished, voters’ roll.
Top
From The Guardian (UK), 6 March
Opinion poll gives Tsvangirai clear lead
Robert Mugabe goes into the election in three days' time with nearly twice as many Zimbabweans saying they will vote for his main rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, as there are pledging to support the president who has ruled for 22 years. But the most revealing statistic of a new opinion poll is that 60% of voters are apparently too afraid to say who they support. The poll, conducted by the University of Zimbabwe's mass public opinion institute, is the most scientific and comprehensive to date. Just 11.3% of voters said they back Mr Mugabe, compared with 19.8% for his opponent. "The task is the interpretation of the nearly 60% who opted to keep their choice a secret," said Professor Masipula Sithole, the institute's director. "The high number is a manifestation of fear and an environment of intimidation. It's obvious most of the intimidation is coming from the ruling party, and those intimidated by it are likely to be opponents of the ruling party, not supporters."
The bad news for Mr Mugabe is made worse by the fact that 87% of those questioned claim they intend to vote, meaning that intimidation may discourage people from publicly supporting the opposition but it will not keep them away from the polls. Some analysts believe the president's support has declined even further because the research was conducted before the food shortages began to bite. A slightly different question - who would make the better president? - produced twice as much support for Mr Tsvangirai (31%) as for Mr Mugabe (15%). But there are signs that Mr Mugabe's war of attrition on the vote may be having some impact. By far the lowest registration is among the young, with not much more than half of 18 to 20-year-olds signing up to vote. Just 4% of young voters say they will vote for Mr Mugabe. New electoral laws make it difficult for them to register by requiring proof of residence, which many do not have.
Crucially, 90% of those polled believe their ballot is secret. The ruling party has implicitly acknowledged this in its campaign to intimidate voters with threats of collective punishment of villages that vote against Mr Mugabe. The surprise in the survey was that whoever wins the election, more than 60% of those polled said they would like to see a coalition government of both parties. Prof Sithole said: "People are tired of this polarisation. They want the leadership on both sides to work together, and they are frightened of more violence whichever side wins."
Top
From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 6 March
25p buys protection from the mobs
It costs the equivalent of a day's wages and carries the face of one of Zimbabwe's most unpopular men, yet possessing it can save your life. Millions of black Zimbabweans carry the membership card of President Mugabe's Zanu PF party as a guarantee of safe passage. At roadblocks manned by the regime's notorious youth militia, cards are demanded and anyone unable to produce one can expect, at the very least, a severe beating. Paying the equivalent of 25p for a Zanu PF card, carrying the ironic slogan "Unity, peace and development", is the first step black Zimbabweans have taken in preparation for this weekend's presidential election. Even those who intend to vote for Morgan Tsvangirai, Mr Mugabe's opponent, carry a card with the president's face. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change has officially advised all of its supporters to buy one for their own safety. The next precaution is to display Mr Mugabe's large campaign poster. This shows the president waving his fist above the words "Vote for experience, maturity and wisdom". Every bus displays one on its windscreen or risks being stoned by mobs. Shop windows carry the same display for the same reason. But most important of all, black Zimbabweans huddle in their homes after dark, when Mr Mugabe's mobs go on the rampage. Only by appearing loyal to the regime or completely apathetic can Zimbabweans be sure of surviving the election. Behind the displays of loyalty lurks intense anger. One township resident said: "We know in our hearts we are MDC. We will buy the cards but we know our vote is our secret."
Top
From News24 (SA), 5 March
'All we want is food...'
Harare - "We want food because we don't want people to starve - we want to walk into a shop and buy food." That's all Elfus Mugandiona (36) wants from the election. Like the other vendors at Harare's biggest street market, he has little to offer: dried soy beans and plastic bags. He would like to expand his business, but has no money to buy supplies. Suppliers have anyway run out of stock because of a lack of foreign currency. Like the other residents of Epworth, a Harare slum, he hesitates to state whether he supports President Robert Mugabe or Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change. Neither does he openly criticise the government for the poor state of the country's economy. But he firmly believes the Zimbabwean land reform programme is directly responsible for the famine in parts of the country. "People must get land, but this is the wrong way of doing it. In this way, commercial farmers cannot plant or harvest. New farmers were dumped on bits of land without any logistic aid from the government and they also produce nothing."
Amid intimidation and rumours of assassination plots and military coups, Zimbabweans cherish their secret vote. Zanu PF and MDC youth gangs intimidate people everywhere, he says. He and his family were rounded up to attend a Zanu PF rally the week before. Now they lock their doors and pretend not to be at home when the youths arrive. He furtively glances around before whispering: "If the election is free and fair, we'll have a new government." They hope the presence of foreign election observers will ensure a peaceful election. But they don't know what to believe anymore, with the state and independent press reporting opposites. He had a permanent job with an "indigenous company" until 1999, but it had gone bankrupt, and now he struggles to make ends meet at the market. When vendors don't have money to buy supplies, like at present, they support each other by trading a bag of tomatoes for a pail of mopani worms or a few potatoes, so that everybody would have at least something to sell. "Elfus is my only surviving child," says his mother Lucia Mafota. Eight of her children have died. "But at least I still have a breadwinner - rural people are starving and they have no hope of a better life." She does not want to predict the outcome of the election, stating "as long as the winner provides bread". She is more outspoken that her son, whose pride compels him to believe that hard work will save them. "Life is difficult, and it will get worse," she says. "We can only hope that the election proceeds peacefully." And although the cupboard is often bare, they sometimes manage to send food to rural relatives.
Top
Comment from The Independent (UK), 6 March
Give the voters in Zimbabwe their chance to vote
"The people of Zimbabwe go to the polls this weekend." To anyone who has been even half-following developments in southern Africa, this simple statement suggests one response: loud, hollow laughter. The main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, has been hounded and charged with treason. Gangs of government-sponsored thugs are roaming the countryside threatening his suspected supporters. Journalists have been branded as terrorists, driven into exile or gagged. And the army, having warned that it would seize power itself if President Robert Mugabe failed to regain power, has been entrusted with running the elections. The Zimbabwe government's insistence that it is entirely competent to run a democratic election looks like special pleading of a particularly dishonest kind. So, officials in Harare know how to run an election, we scoff; sure they do - and we all know who will win - and how. All this may come to pass. There are many ways to fix an election, and even if violence and intimidation do not have the intended effect, there is always the count. The longer the counting goes on after the voting on Saturday and Sunday, the greater the probability that the election has been (a) close and (b) rigged. But for those of us ensconced in safety outside Zimbabwe to forecast the result in advance with such certainty is to patronise and demean the voters.
The past 15 years have been distinguished by a spread of democracy that may be without precedent. One dictatorial regime after another has collapsed. In advance, however, the predictions from the First World were invariably pessimistic. Few believed that power would pass in such relative peace. When the first semi-democratic elections were held in the former Soviet Union in the late Eighties, the early reports of intimidation and rigging were legion. From the electoral registers to the material inducements provided at polling stations, everything was arranged to favour the monopoly Communist Party and its proteges. Offered even half a choice, however, voters displayed extraordinary determination, common sense and, yes, idealism. Before successive elections in Russia, doom-watchers have forecast sweeping victories for extremists, mostly from the right. But the "red-brown" communist-fascist alliance has never come near taking power in Russia, or anywhere else for that matter. In those eastern and central European countries with a past tradition of democracy, the embrace of democracy was even swifter and more comprehensive.
The enthusiasm for even inadequate versions of democracy is hardly unique to Russia and central Europe. You have only to recall those pictures of the first post-apartheid election in South Africa, those hundreds of thousands of people queuing patiently to vote, to appreciate the appeal of elections. And if a one-party system effectively excludes choice at the top, local elections or candidate selection meetings are often hotly and genuinely contested. China and Libya may not immediately come to mind as paragons of democracy, but in the lower ranks of representation not everything there is pre-ordained. It may be true that the less accustomed voters are to elections, the greater the respect they accord to their vote. In 1991, when Ukrainians voted in their referendum on independence, I watched parents and grandparents carrying their children to the ballot-box to cast their vote, taking photographs and telling their three-, four- or five-year-olds dressed in their Sunday best that they should remember this day for the rest of their lives: they were deciding their country's future.
But even when elections fall short of "free and fair", votes are still capable of defying the odds. Having reported on all manner of elections, I have one overriding impression: amid rank dishonesty, political blackmail and nasty, targeted violence, voters can show admirable courage, resilience and discernment. Surrounded by a cacophony of extremism, they can exercise a remarkable degree of moderation. In any election where 100 per cent of the votes have not been vetted in advance, the closure of the polls and the sealing of the ballot boxes is a magical moment. However much of a sham such formalities may be, from then until the announcement of the result, there is that element of doubt, that frisson of excitement, that is unique to elections. The uncertainty may be over in minutes - French television builds a portrait of the new President on screen within minutes of the polls closing - or hours. It may last for days, or, as in the United States in 2000, it may drag on for weeks. But it is an enchanted period when no one knows for certain what will come next. So when the polling stations in Zimbabwe close on Sunday night and the ballot boxes are sealed, resist that rush to cynicism and give the country's hard-pressed voters a chance. If repression prevails, there is time for anger. But don't write off Zimbabweans before they have voted. They may yet surprise us.
Top
From The Financial Gazette, 7 March
More questions than answers on Zim poll
With only three days to go before Zimbabweans vote to elect their president, organisers were still unable yesterday to give basic details of how the election will be conducted. At a briefing for foreign election observers and the media, questions rained down on Sobuza Gula-Ndebele, a retired army colonel who chairs the Electoral Supervisory Commission (ESC), but time after time he was unable to give an answer. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and foreign critics accuse President Robert Mugabe, 78, of trying to rig the election, in which he faces his toughest challenge since he became leader after independence from Britain in 1980.
Sobuza Gula-Ndebele and other key electoral officials could not say how many ballot papers had been printed for the weekend presidential poll. Mystery surrounded the number of soldiers and policemen who have already cast their votes by postal ballot - an exercise which had not been made public until a report in a pro-opposition newspaper this week. "Some have voted but it is a minute number," Gula-Ndebele answered when asked by a Commonwealth observer who, if anybody, had monitored the voting by security forces. "How many?" asked the observer. "Not many," he replied. Nor was light shed on the exact location of 4 548 polling stations and when voters’ lists would be made public. Mugabe’s rival, MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, says the campaign has been marred by systematic intimidation and cheating but insists he will win anyway. Most of the 500 accredited foreign observers are from Africa. Zimbabwe has excluded others from Britain, the European Union and the United States.
The ESC briefing, whose members were all appointed by Mugabe, clearly left many observers dissatisfied. "I have a problem. I don’t think as the supervisor of an election that is only a couple of days away you can tell people "I don’t know" Martha Sayed of Botswana’s Independent Electoral Commission said. "There is no way you can say at this stage that you don’t know how many ballot papers have been printed." When that question was asked, Simon Muchemenyi, representing Zimbabwe’s Registrar-General, replied: "I don’t have the exact figure but it is enough to cater for the needs." Norway’s senior observer, Kare Vollan, asked several questions which received no complete answers. "We are not sure what the bottleneck is," Gula-Ndebele said when pressed on the tiny number of accredited local observers. The opposition says the government is limiting the number to obstruct transparency in the voting.
A US diplomat, who wanted to know when the 5.6 million voters would learn exactly where they were registered to vote, was told that under Zimbabwean law this information could be published as late as Saturday, the first day of balloting. Gula-Ndebele sought to counter the sceptical tone of much of the questioning, saying that despite their high standard of education Zimbabweans were often distrustful of each other. "There are no secrets and tricks about this election," he said. It was also learnt last night that Mugabe had invalidated a Supreme Court ruling last week which struck down the government’s legislation which barred independent monitors from checking the validity of the vote. Mugabe announced further changes to the Electoral Act which gives the ESC power to ban voters who renounced Zimbabwean citizenship but retained permanent residences.
Top
From The Times (UK), 7 March
Chaos fears as Mugabe blocks poll observers
Harare - Fears of vote-rigging and chaos in the most closely contested presidential race in Zimbabwe’s history were raised again yesterday as President Mugabe’s regime devised new obstacles to scrutinise the voting and set fresh ones for voters in opposition strongholds. The deployment of 12,500 independent local poll observers drawn from a coalition of 38 churches, civic bodies and trade unions, who were meant to be posted in polling stations and counting centres throughout the electoral process, was also in grave doubt last night. The observers of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) were seen as the last chance to block a full-scale manipulation of the vote by Mr Mugabe after the European Union withdrew its observers last month when the Government expelled the head of its mission, Pierre Schori. "Their job was to shadow the ESC (state) monitors and force them to deal with any anomalies," a Western diplomat said. "If ZESN’s people aren’t in place, they (the Government) will be able to do virtually anything."
Reginald Matchaba-Hove, the ZESN chairman, said yesterday the Government had promised that it would be allowed to have three observers at each of the 4,548 polling stations. "We have on the ground structures that are ready to operate at the switch of a button. We have ten command centres around the country and a national centre here that will be ready with a report on the election before the results are out. We are ready, save for the fact that we have not been accredited." ZESN supplied a full list of its monitors on February 21, the Government’s deadline. "They have now said they will allow only three observers from each organisation," Mr Matchaba-Hove said. "We are very concerned that the (electoral) environment is still uncertain. Our concern is that we cannot have access not just to the polling stations, but to the counting as well."
A briefing yesterday by the heads of the state-appointed Election Supervisory Commission did nothing to assuage fears of observers. The officials were unable to say how many voters had been registered or the number of ballot papers printed. Neither could they say when soldiers had started to use postal ballots, nor when lists of voters and polling locations would be available. A total of 31 people have died in political violence this year, all but three victims of Mr Mugabe’s militias, according to the Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum, the sole source of reliable statistics on violence. In the past two months, there have been 125 abductions, 26 disappearances and 366 cases of assault or torture. Civic groups have provided the ESC’s monitors for all national and local elections in the past 15 years, but the Government banned them this year, claiming that they were "sponsoring" the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. The Government says that it has trained 20,000 of its own monitors. President Mugabe issued an edict yesterday that will make it more difficult for people to vote, lawyers said. Officials in charge of polling stations have been granted the powers to demand proof of residence from anyone turning up to vote. Most people in urban townships, where the MDC draws its strongest support, do not pay municipal electricity, water or rates bills, the receipts for which they will have to produce if a polling officer demands proof of residence.
Top
From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 7 March
Zimbabwe observer hears tale of torture
Harare - The leader of the Commonwealth observer mission in Zimbabwe, Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar, listened yesterday to harrowing reports from torture victims and a man who said he was a defector from President Mugabe's youth militia. The meeting in Bulawayo was arranged by Commonwealth observers seeking to convince the former Nigerian military leader of the seriousness of violence and intimidation taking place. Gen Abubakar's views of the election carry particular weight, as they are likely to decide whether Zimbabwe will be suspended from the Commonwealth after this weekend's elections. Gen Abubakar met Raymond, 18, now living in a privately arranged safe house, who said he had joined the ruling party's youth militia because he believed he would receive skills training. Instead, he said, the army trained him and others, some as young as 14, to beat people and set up roadblocks. He painted a picture of brutality within and outside the camp in southern Zimbabwe. "We had to be sure Zanu PF pamphlets were not spoiled. But when one was, a man in my group was beaten, and he bled a lot," Gen Abubakar heard. Raymond said he and 15 colleagues were eventually rescued by soldiers. There was a gasp from observers as two supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change showed Gen Abubakar wounds they said were caused by Mr Mugabe's militia at a secret camp in a suburb of Bulawayo. They said they were tortured for six hours with leather whips. Another four victims said they were too frightened to speak to observers in public. Zimbabwe police said yesterday 16 people had died in political violence since Jan 1, half the number claimed by human rights groups.
Top
From The Financial Gazette, 7 March
Vote scam exposed
The government has quietly - some say illegally - been registering voters well after the publicly announced official closure of the voters’ roll, a development that has cast serious doubt on the validity of the weekend presidential election. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) yesterday said it will today seek nullification by the High Court of a supplementary voters’ roll prepared after the January 27 deadline for voter registration, adding high drama to an election already marred by violence and countless accusations of rigging. Several lawyers told the Financial Gazette yesterday the MDC had a strong case against the government. After several extensions from the initial December 9 2001 deadline, the final date for voters to register for the weekend ballot was set for January 27 2002. But government loyalist Tobaiwa Mudede, the registrar-general in charge of the voters’ registration and conduct of the poll, continued registering voters - only closing the rolls on March 3 2002.
Mudede and the government did not advertise the extension of the voter registration nor did they enact a law legalising the exercise. Mugabe, using his sweeping presidential powers, only decreed Statutory Instrument 41D on March 5 2002 to allow for the extension of the registration after this newspaper had received numerous calls from members of the public that thousands of voters in mostly Mashonaland, Mugabe’s stronghold, were still registering. Both Mudede and Home Affairs Minister John Nkomo, who controls the registrar-general’s office, could not be reached for comment up to the time of going to print last night. Their offices said they were engaged in meetings.
The Electoral Supervisory Commission (ESC), the body which under the constitution is supposed to supervise the registration of voters and the conduct of elections, could only admit yesterday that voter registration had been extended to March 3. The ESC, whose admission came only after inquiries checking on why the voters’ roll had been kept open, said in a statement: "The registrar-general had to extend the closure of the voters’ roll to the 3rd of March to accommodate voters who registered after the 27th January 2002 in terms of Section 5 of statutory Instrument 41 D of 2002." The ESC, decried by its critics as a toothless bulldog, could not say how many voters were on the controversial supplementary roll prepared by Mudede after January 27. Nor could it explain why the extension of voter registration was never advertised and why enabling legislation was only enacted after the extension had been made. The ESC yesterday referred all questions to Mudede.
Many Zimbabweans, especially in the opposition’s urban strongholds, did not know that the registration was still open up to March 3. Many who could have benefited were left out in the extended exercise which sources say was carried out mainly in rural areas, where Mugabe believes he still has strong support. Reginald Matchaba-Hove, the chairman of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, a coalition of local non-governmental organisations involved in voter education, said: "To be honest, we did not know that the voters’ roll was still open." Paul Themba Nyathi, the elections director of the MDC, said the opposition party was never told that the government had extended voter registration. At a later stage when the MDC became aware that Mudede had continued registering voters, the party wrote to Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri urging him to intervene and stop the illegal exercise, Nyathi said. But Chihuri did not act. "This thing was not gazetted. We were never told about it and we are challenging it in the courts. We want the courts to declare that supplementary roll null and void," Nyathi said. Constitutional law expert Lovemore Madhuku said: "What the government did is not legal and it could be challenged in court." Leading advocate Adrian de Bourbon concurred, saying: "No one knew the voters’ roll was still open. There is a strong case there for (the MDC)."
Top
From The Times (UK), 7 March
Mugabe’s mob burns village to rig polls
St Peters, Matabeleland - The villagers of St Peters have just experienced electioneering Mugabe-style. The trauma of being invaded by a violent, marauding militia is stamped on the faces of those who did not run from the Zimbabwean leader’s special brand of political intimidation. They sit listlessly on the dusty ground, staring at the few cracked plates and burnt mattresses that remain in front of their charred huts. "I had very little in the world to start with," said Maggie Moyo, a 55-year-old mother-of-four and, like most of the villagers, an opposition supporter. "Now I have nothing." Moyo was sitting in her house when the youths struck on Sunday afternoon. "I know they were Zanu," she says, referring to the pro-Mugabe party. "I saw their T-shirts and hats." She ran to the bush and watched as they poured three gallons of petrol and paraffin over the thatched hut she has lived in for 22 years. But the most important thing Moyo lost - as did most of the villagers - was her ID card, making it impossible for her to vote in this weekend’s presidential election. It is a frequent ploy of the Zanu thugs. "In the run-up to the election, IDs are deliberately stolen," says Shari Eppel, who runs the Amani Trust, a human rights organisation in Bulawayo. "In Zimbabwe, to steal an ID is to steal a vote."
Such intimidation is not new in this part of Matabeleland: in the 1980s 20,000 died at the hands of Mugabe thugs. It worked then and it has worked again. Although most people are too frightened to talk about their political affiliation - the goal of the pro-Mugabe militias - the village was believed to sympathise with the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Before the attack 2,600 people lived here, most of whom would have voted MDC. Now, there are a handful of brave ones left, the rest are cowering in an empty school down the dirt road, plastered with posters of Robert Mugabe’s face. "War veterans were commanding the militias," says Almon Tshabala, the local MDC vice-chairman. "One in particular, Pius Ndovu. He pointed out the houses where the strongest opposition leaders lived."
The destruction of St Peters happened quickly. The people heard the militias before they saw them: crashing through the bush, chanting and singing Zanu PF songs. By the time they saw them, wearing caps and T-shirts emblazoned with Mugabe’s face and raised fists, it was too late. The attackers were carrying whips and small axes. The villagers who could run did so, quickly, into the bushes and hid, holding their children. The old or sick or handicapped were left behind to fend for themselves: a mentally ill man was hit with an axe, an older woman had her skull gashed. Another man was tortured for three hours for not producing an ID card. The militias, according to witnesses, were mainly composed of "Green Bombers", the Zanu PF youth wing, who are training in 150 camps throughout the country. Desperate teenagers who have been promised jobs if Mugabe wins, they are schooled in Zanu propaganda and the techniques of how to intimidate and torture opponents. Witnesses say nearly 600 militia men who came out of the bushes in two groups. As they descended on the village, they began to smash and burn everything in their path. When they had finished 25 homes had been destroyed.
Two Norwegian election observers, Marianne Oeen and Gunnar Johannessen, arrived an hour after the attack and confirmed the villagers’ story. They saw houses still burning and took testimonies, noting that most IDs had been destroyed. When they went to the police to investigate, they were told that there had been a "clash" in the village. Five youths were later picked up in connection with the burnings, but all were MDC youth members who claimed they were nowhere in the area. They were later released on bail. "After the police picked them up, they came here and accused the villagers of burning down their own people," said Michael Dhlamini, the local MDC chairman. "How could we burn our own?" The MDC, to many of these farmers and menial workers, signalled a change, a release from the oppression of life under Robert Mugabe which offered them virtually nothing. Maggie Moyo does not know why the militias came, "other than to kill", but she still raises her arm in the open-hand MDC victory sign and tries to smile. "They burned my ID card and my birth certificate," she says, "so how can I vote? But I still love the MDC. If we don’t have them in the government, how will my children ever work? Without them, all they will do is herd donkeys."
Top
From The Guardian (UK), 7 March
Zimbabwe media lists British 'plots'
Harare - You may not have heard of Britain's masterplan to "do a Milosevic" on Robert Mugabe, but Zimbabwe's state press claims it is all part of the plot. The crucial clue to this dastardly scheme, if you are in the minority who believe Zimbabwe's television news and the imaginative government newspapers, is the background of the British high commissioner, Brian Donnelly. Before he arrived in Zimbabwe last July, Mr Donnelly was ambassador to Belgrade for two years. It has not gone unnoticed that the bombing of Yugoslavia started during his tenure, and that he was still embroiled in the Balkans when Slobodan Milosevic was driven from power. Zimbabwe's Sunday Mail sees Mr Donnelly's hand in the Yugoslav president's downfall, and cannot imagine why else he would be in Harare if not to do the same to Mr Mugabe. "Donnelly was brought to Zimbabwe 'to do a Milosevic' to President Robert Mugabe," the paper warns. "It is understood that British intelligence is working closely with elements in the [opposition] Movement for Democratic Change, surviving Rhodesian Selous Scouts and former apartheid military officers to fuel post-election violence to torpedo President Mugabe's widely expected victory."
You might not believe it, and millions of Zimbabweans certainly do not. But every day, a barrage of highly creative stories, clever manipulations and downright lies is thrown at the public. If people are hungry it is not because the seizures of white farms have dealt a devastating blow to food production, but because whites are hoarding grain or burning it to discredit Mr Mugabe. If there is political violence, it is all the fault of the opposition, even though it is the MDC's supporters who end up dead or in hospital. According to the state press, Mr Donnelly made an early start in his campaign to destabilise the president by secretly coordinating the mass looting and burning of white-owned farms by their owners to discredit the "war veterans" who had seized the land. The state newspapers have also kept their readers abreast of the MDC's role in South Africa's biggest robbery, although the police in Pretoria know nothing of this.
But the core of the propaganda is to portray this weekend's presidential election as a "titanic fight" to maintain Zimbabwe's independence in the face of British attempts to recolonise it. "Say no to Tony Bliar's colonial call", says an advert by the ruling Zanu PF, deliberately misspelling his name because Mr Mugabe refers to him as Tony-B-Liar. One newspaper calls the election a "do or die tussle" between the president and Britain, never mind that the opinion polls show that most people are more worried about inflation, food shortages and unemployment. Everywhere there are reminders of the liberation war. Music videos, popular for their suggestive dancing, have been replaced by "war songs" and grainy film of the struggle for independence. The papers claim that if Mr Donnelly's plot to prompt a popular uprising fails, Britain is planning to set up bases in Zambia, Botswana and Mozambique from which its army can invade Zimbabwe. "The MDC has requested British military intervention if it loses the election and many right-thinking Zimbabweans are worried to the bone," the Sunday Mail says. Mr Mugabe is, of course, more than up to the task of leading the fight, even at 78. "He has since independence turned the people of Zimbabwe into an anvil upon which British imperial perfidy has painfully knocked its head in repeated failures," the paper declares.
Top
From BBC News, 8 March
Zimbabwe election rules still unclear
On the Zimbabwe border - Zimbabweans go to the polls on Saturday and Sunday to elect a president with many of the details still to be revealed. Three days before voting, the voters' rolls had not been published and the number of ballot papers printed was unknown. Nor had the authorities officially confirmed the location or number of polling stations. The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change - whose candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai is expected to mount a strong challenge to President Mugabe - fears that polling stations will be reduced in urban areas, where it draws its main support. The Election Support Network, which brings together nearly 40 non-governmental organisations, is also concerned. "There can no excuse for leaving publication of the election details so late," said the network head, Reginald Matchaba-Hove. He is particularly troubled that just 300 of the network's 12,000 local observers have been offered accreditation. The government insists that previous elections since Zimbabwe became independent 22 years ago have been well-organised, and this weekend's presidential poll will be no different. "It will be calm, and the result will be positive for President Mugabe," said Nathan Shamuyarira, information spokesman for the ruling party, Zanu-PF.
Some of the election details are certain: Polling will be held over two days, from 7am to 7pm each day; There are 5.6 million eligible voters; There will be 4,500 polling stations; Voters cast their ballots in whichever of the 120 constituencies they are registered; Each party can have one agent at each polling station; Postal ballots are only allowed for some government employees (such as members of the armed forces, diplomats); Party agents may accompany ballot boxes between polling stations and counting centres, but not in the same vehicle; Counting begins 8am, Monday 11 March; Results will be announced constituency by constituency at election headquarters in Harare. Zimbabwean officials are proud of the elaborate process of securing the ballot boxes after voting. Each has a wax seal, as well as tape which is signed by party representatives. The seals are supposed to be inspected before being opened. The opposition says that after months of violence, it is not possible talk of a free and fair election. Whether the polling procedures will be observed will soon become clear.
Top
From ZWNEWS - Voting
To vote in the Presidential election on the weekend of 9 and 10 March:
You must be 18 years of age or over;
You must be a Zimbabwe citizen resident or not or a permanent resident since 31 December 1985, with proof of this fact;
You must be registered to vote and your name must be on the voters’ roll;
You will have to vote within Zimbabwe, and within the constituency in which you are registered:
You must take with you the following identification : a valid passport, or a Zimbabwe national ID card, or a Zimbabwe driver’s licence which must have your ID number on it.
The voting days are likely to be long, hot and tedious. Remember to take a hat, something to drink and eat if possible, and be prepared to wait. Please also take any documentation you may have regarding your voter and citizenship status, and proof of residence in your constituency. Share your provisions with others waiting to vote, and remember those the elderly or handicapped who may need assistance, and let them go to the front of the queue. You should INSIST on your right to vote. If despite all your efforts you are not allowed to vote, inform every observer/monitor/journalist you can find - and keep trying. If you are not allowed to vote, please phone the helpline numbers below and give your details.
Voting Helpline: 091 241 156; 091 241 157; 04 781 138; 04 781 139; and/or fax 04 781 381
There will be a vigil this weekend outside the Zimbabwe High Commission in The Strand, London. To coincide with the polling times in Zimbabwe, the vigil will be held from 5am UK time on the morning of Saturday 9 March to 5pm UK time on the evening of Sunday 10 March. The vigil will include song, dance and personal testimonies, as well as symbolic balloting for expatriate Zimbabweans who have been denied the vote.
Top
From The Times (UK), 8 March
MDC confident despite curbs
Harare - The Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said yesterday that victory in the presidential elections this weekend was certain, as lawyers and civic groups battled to overturn a raft of restrictions on free voting. The Government appeared so determined to put obstacles in the path of Mr Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change that it had stopped even trying to disguise its strategies in front of international observers, diplomats said. Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, long a political ally of President Mugabe, refused to hear a case brought by the capital’s residents to abolish laws that allow him to issue edicts about the running of elections in which he is closely involved, and to demand that the voters’ roll be made public. The Combined Harare Residents’ Association also called on Mr Chidyausiku to remove himself from the case. In a letter to the association, he said that their appeal was intemperate, inflammatory and contemptuous and sought to make a mockery of the court. The residents had failed to satisfy the minimum standards of deference to the court, he said. The judge saw the papers a week ago but responded only two days before the start of voting.
More ominously, the Zimbabwe Army yesterday began to move large numbers of troops, accompanied by armoured cars and rocket launchers, out of their bases ahead of the weekend’s elections, military experts said. "There were vehicles coming out in streams," said Michael Quintana, Editor of Africa Defence Journal, based in Harare. He said he had witnessed the movements when he drove past all the main military bases in the capital yesterday. "The army is deploying a sizeable force outside barracks," he said. "It’s perhaps one third of its strength. Presumably it’s in case of any trouble over the weekend." The position of the country’s military has become a source of serious anxiety after statements from the heads of the armed forces in January. They said they would not obey a political leader who was not involved in the armed struggle by nationalist guerrillas led by Mr Mugabe against white rule in the 1970s. The remarks were seen as a threat against Mr Tsvangirai.
Top
From The Zimbabwe Independent, 8 March
Zanu PF seeks to divert voters with mealie-meal
The food supply position continues to worsen despite assurances by President Robert Mugabe that no-one will starve. The ruling party is now using the available maize-meal for electioneering purposes, it was revealed this week. Government has commandeered mealie-meal following its failure to import 52 000 tonnes of the commodity from South Africa before this weekend's election. State security operatives, who have assumed a key role in the distribution of maize meal, have diverted the commodity to government storage facilities while milling companies' distribution logistics are now under strict control. Milling company officials yesterday confirmed they had been instructed to only release mealie-meal on the election days of Saturday and Sunday. This, observers said, is intended to divert voters in urban areas where the opposition holds sway from polling stations to grocery shops and supermarkets.
Officials at Manyame Milling Company in Marondera confirmed the ruling party had purchased all the mealie-meal they had in stock. "Some top Zanu PF officials in the province came here and ordered us not to sell mealie-meal to anyone and we had no choice but to comply for fear that our business would be disrupted," said one official. Residents in the town said they were not pleased with the latest development. "When we went to collect our mealie-meal supplies at the millers which we paid for in advance, we were shocked to hear that all the mealie-meal had been purchased by Zanu PF officials in the town," said Nomore Murwira, a small trader in the town. At Harare Central Hospital nurses were on Tuesday pleasantly surprised when they were told to each collect a bottle of cooking oil from the hospital's accounts department. One medical doctor said it was easy to see through Zanu PF's latest tactic. "Morgan Tsvangirai was coming to visit patients at the hospital and they did not want the nurses and the general staff to give him an audience," he said. "That's why they came up with this plan. It did not work though as Tsvangirai's visit generated a lot of interest," said the doctor. People waiting for mealie-meal at Montagu Supermarket were told last week that all supplies had been taken by State House personnel.
Top
From The Christian Science Monitor, 7 March
Zimbabwe battens down for uneasy election
Predictions of unrest and doubts about a widely acceptable result precede weekend poll
Harare - Fabulous Beauty Salon on the corner of Mugabe street in downtown Harare is cram-packed. Patricia is getting her nails done. Nancy is fiddling with her hair extensions. On Monday this shop will be closed. No one seems to be sure about Tuesday. Or Wednesday. The manager fits a new metal gate to his storefront window and closes his account books. "I don't know, I don't know," he responds to a future appointment inquiry. As Zimbabweans go to the polls this weekend - amid fears that the violence which has marked the election campaign will reach even greater levels - the country is grinding to a standstill. No matter who wins - whether Zanu PF incumbent President Robert Mugabe, or his challenger, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) candidate Morgan Tsvangirai - most predict there will be unrest. Foreigners are evacuating. Locals who can afford it are either locking up and flying out, or stocking up on food. And the majority of the population - dirt poor, hungry, increasingly frustrated, and without options - is just waiting. "It is not a question of whether or not there will be violence," one senior Western diplomat wrote in a cable to his capital last week. "It's a question of how much and for how long ... and how Zimbabwe is going to come out of it."
Due to the political climate, people are afraid to say whom they will be voting for. Nonetheless, several independent polls clearly indicate that Mr. Tsvangirai has more popular support than Mr. Mugabe, possibly much more. The country is experiencing an economic free fall. Unemployment is estimated at 60 percent, inflation is more than 100 percent. Half a million people are faced with starvation because of drought and the forced occupation of white commercial farms by squatters. Foreign investment has all but dried up, and tourists are staying away. Zimbabwe has become a pariah state internationally. It is likely that if Mugabe continues as president, the European Union (EU) will impose full sanctions here, and relations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and other donors will collapse. The opposition party slogan is as simple as it is appealing. "Change! Change! Change!"
Some envision a scenario whereby Mugabe - an aging soldier who has run Zimbabwe since white rule ended in 1980 and who blames the current economic mess on former colonial power Britain - takes note of his loss and steps down. "Mugabe might say he does not intend to step down," says Masiphula Sithole, a professor of political science at the University of Zimbabwe. "But when faced with the facts especially if he loses by such a large margin that it is impossible to tamper with it - he will leave." Most pundits however, scoff at this idea and say that Mugabe - power hungry and fearful of possible retribution for his bloody crackdown in Matabeland in the 1980s - will refuse to release the reins of power. "There is no option of Mugabe winning fairly. And no option of his accepting a loss. It's all about stealing the elections," says Wilfred Mhanda, a war veteran who heads the Zimbabwe Liberators Platform, an alternative association of former fighters who oppose Mugabe. "And this has already been done - such theft does not just happen on election day."
Mugabe's detractors point at a very long list of irregularities - from mere voter confusion tactics to outright brutal intimidation - as evidence that the election heist began long ago. British Prime Minister Tony Blair claims that a free and fair election is now virtually impossible. Sixty-nine of Tsvangirai's rallies have been banned or disrupted by thugs. More than 400,000 serious human-rights abuses have been reported, and 107 MDC supporters and activists have been reported to have died in political violence over the past two years. While some, such Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa, claim Mugabe has more support than most realize and can win legitimately, by and large neither the outside world nor ordinary Zimbabweans will trust any Mugabe victory.
If Mugabe does declare victory, it is generally expected that a good number of those who stayed in the country with a wait-and-see attitude will leave - joining the 25 percent of productive labor force that has already fled in the past four years. And that many others, especially in the urban areas, will take to the streets in protest. "People have pegged their hopes for change on this election, and frustration will be tremendous. Explosions come when there is no recourse," says Brian Kogoro, director of Crisis in Zimbabwe, a civic-society umbrella organization. "Mugabe can claim victory but not legitimacy, and with no food, no work, and no recourse, people will certainly revolt. They have nothing to lose." "The people have been wanting to rise up against the government for a long time, but the opposition held them down - saying they were going to win," adds Mhanda. He explains that the revolt will be organized, and he admits that preparations are already under way. "Aims are being debated. Discussions are focused on whether there should be call for a recount of votes or simply a power takeover," he says. "In any case, reaction will be immediate. We can't wait. We are chomping at the bit."
What results such a revolt will bring, however, depends on how the military responds. Those Army generals who have risen within Mugabe's system of patronage, and who have become rich off looting diamond mines in Congo, are none too keen to see the president lose power. In fact, the top brass have made it clear that they will respect only one outcome. The Defense force commander, Gen. Vitalis Zvinavashe, has said that he will not serve a president who does not have a liberation war background. Tsvangirai, a former miner and union boss, has no such background. The real question seems to be what the lower-ranking military men will do if forced to choose between turning their guns on civilians or on their superiors. "These young military men are the key," says Sithole. "The Army is more than a handful of generals, and the rank and file don't ride in Mercedes or have exorbitant salaries." Sithole believes these men, who live meagre lives, would be unlikely to support Mugabe in such a scenario. "They will come together and tell Mugabe: 'Listen, you don't have a chance of resisting the will of the people. Call Morgan and concede the elections. They will dial the numbers.'" Mhanda is not so sure. "This is an academic debate. We will have to wait and see," he says.
"On Saturday and Sunday, I predict quiet," says one Western diplomat. "It's in Mugabe's interest to make elections look as free and fair as possible, and Tsvangirai wants to maintain quiet so that as many people as possible come out to vote." On Monday and Tuesday, there will also be quiet, continues the diplomat - who had just finished sending off to South Africa all the dependents in his embassy - because everyone will be waiting to hear the results, and there is no point in making noise before that. "The announcement will come on Wednesday or Thursday," he concludes. "And then hell will break loose." Perhaps not coincidentally, Thursday is also the day on which every accredited foreign journalist's visa to Zimbabwe runs out. Back at the Fabulous Beauty Salon, Nancy is still leafing through women's magazines, waiting for all her hair extensions to be braided. Her hairdo should stay in shape for at least a month. "I hope by then we will be over the worst, and this country will calm down so I can come get it reset and rebraided," she says. "But who knows?"
Top
From The Washington Post, 8 March
Zimbabweans see trouble ahead
Harare - Wellington Chinyama sat down in a barber's chair today, unfolded his newspaper and without glancing up asked the young man trimming his hair the question that seems to be on virtually everyone's mind here: "So Joseph, have you prepared yourself for Zimbabwe's civil war?" Two days before Zimbabweans go to the polls to re-elect or oust Robert Mugabe, the only leader the country has ever known, the question of who will win the election seemed almost secondary to how the loser and his followers will respond. Surveys show the challenger, Morgan Tsvangirai, a trade union leader, ahead of Mugabe. But a surge in political violence and accusations that the governing party changed election laws to rig the vote have fanned widespread concerns among Zimbabweans, election monitors and foreign diplomats that neither political party nor their supporters are prepared to accept the final tally.
"It does not take a vivid imagination to envision a scenario on the ground where either rioters or the military takes to the streets in the days to come," an African diplomat said. Most disturbing are pronouncements by senior government officials and military leaders that they would not allow this former British colony to be led by Tsvangirai and his political party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). In a television interview broadcast this week, Didymus Mutasa, a spokesman for Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party, said he and other veterans of the country's independence war found the prospect of an MDC government intolerable. "People have said being ruled by the MDC is being ruled by Ian Smith," Mutasa said, referring to the prime minister of white-ruled Rhodesia, as the country was known before gaining independence in 1980. "Under these circumstances, if there were to be a coup, we would support it very definitely."
At least 34 people have died in political violence this year, almost all of them MDC supporters. State Department officials this week accused Mugabe's government of numerous human rights violations during the election campaign, an allegation vehemently denied by Zanu PF officials. A newspaper reported today that Mugabe had put the armed forces on "high alert" and recalled soldiers from neighboring Congo, where they have been deployed in that country's civil war. Police commissioner Augustine Chihuri denied the reports. Still, many Zimbabweans see this weekend's election as a contest between immovable forces: a 78-year-old autocrat desperate to remain in power and an opposition party dominated by restless young citizens weary of government corruption, food shortages and unemployment. "If Mugabe announces that he has won the election, I think that people will not believe it and will storm the castle," said Sibongile Mbuyiso, an MDC supporter. "But if the MDC wins, I believe Mugabe will announce martial law, throw Tsvangirai in jail for plotting to kill him and send the army into the streets."
Government officials last month charged Tsvangirai and two other MDC officials with high treason for allegedly plotting to assassinate Mugabe. That charge is based largely on a heavily edited videotape in which Tsvangirai refers to the "elimination" of Mugabe. Tsvangirai was responding to a question posed by a Canadian publicist with whom he was meeting and who subsequently signed a contract with Zanu PF. Political analysts say the charges may have laid the groundwork for Mugabe to jail Tsvangirai as a last-ditch effort to stay in power should he lose the election. But that outcome is certainly not a foregone conclusion. MDC officials say that 22 of their polling agents have been abducted in the past week, and a surge in violent attacks in swing districts could persuade enough MDC supporters to vote for Zanu PF to ensure Mugabe's victory.
In addition, governing party officials have revised election laws and procedures in a manner that could change the outcome of the vote, according to independent election observers. Zanu PF officials have told election observers that they intend to increase the number of polling stations in rural areas believed to be their strongholds and reduce the number of stations in urban areas, where there is strong support for the opposition. Observers say that could produce long voting lines and discourage some MDC supporters from casting ballots. Zanu PF election officials also plan to use civil service employees to monitor the vote-counting and bar independent monitors from nonprofit organizations from assisting in such routine tasks as transporting ballot boxes to counting stations. A residency requirement introduced last month bans registered voters from casting ballots if they cannot provide leases or utility bills in their names. That, according to foreign diplomats and MDC supporters, could disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of young opposition supporters who live with their parents.
"Clearly, Mugabe is doing everything he can to steal this election," said John Makumbe, a political science professor at the University of Zimbabwe. Tsvangirai said at a news conference tonight that if he wins the election, he would not prosecute Mugabe. That could ease pressure on Mugabe to remain in power to avoid prosecution for his government's attack in the 1980s in Matabeleland, the home of the Ndebele tribe, which at the time posed the most significant threat to his leadership. An estimate of the number of people killed in the operation ranges from 10,000 to 20,000.
Top
From News24 (SA), 9 March
Zim polls open for presidential election
Harare - Polls opened Saturday in Zimbabwe's historic presidential election pitting longtime ruler Robert Mugabe against opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai after an acrimonious, violence-wracked campaign. Polls opened at 7:00 am (0500 GMT) under a light drizzle in Harare, where long lines had formed outside polling stations. Some voters had queued since 3:00 am. "Time is very important today," one young woman said at a polling station set up in a tent by the normally bustling Mbare market, closed on polling day. "I don't want to spend time in the queue." Hundreds of people were waiting in the queue. "It's raining, but I'm happy because I know what I'm doing, I'm voting," a woman voter said. The urban vote is thought to favor Tsvangirai, who poses the most formidable challenge ever to Mugabe's 22-year rule, with rights groups and the independent press saying the former union boss could win if the vote is free and fair. At the David Livingston School in Harare, some 150 people had lined up before polling opened including more than a dozen white voters, mainly elderly. "We want positive results," one voter said. "We want change even if it won't be a fair election." An MDC activist at the polling station said: "We hope that people will be brave enough to bring about change."
The vote caps a campaign that has seen at least 33 people killed in political violence, according to rights groups, and legal wrangling up to final hours as the opposition challenged last-minute changes by Mugabe to the electoral rules. As election day dawned, the MDC had still not obtained the accreditation of most of its polling agents, and had not been allowed to see the final voters' roll. The conditions ahead of the polling drew sanctions against Mugabe and his inner circle from the European Union and the United States. The election comes as the vast majority of Zimbabweans are caught up in an unprecedented economic crisis marked by an inflation rate nearing 120 percent, 60 percent unemployment and chronic food shortages in a country that was once a regional breadbasket. Four in five Zimbabweans live below the poverty level. Mugabe's answer to the longstanding crisis has been his campaign to redistribute white-owned farmland to marginalized blacks, a message that has been politicized since legislative elections in 2000 and has taken on a full-blown anti-white dimension in the presidential campaign.
Top
From The Guardian (UK), 9 March
Voters blame the leader who can't feed his country
Matopos, Matabeleland - Robert Mugabe has warned the people of Matabeleland that a vote against him in this weekend's presidential election will bring 'fire' to their homes. Residents of the blighted region in southern Zimbabwe have good reason to fear conflict. Thousands of Ndebele were murdered by Mr Mugabe's army two decades ago for failing to submit to the domination of the ruling Zanu PF. But war is no longer the worst imaginable calamity. Matabeleland's people are living with a more immediate threat - hunger. Drought has withered crops and the upheaval of the land invasions has left shops bare of maize and cooking oil, crucial ingredients in the Zimbabwean diet. It is no way to go into an election, particularly as many in the region hold Mr Mugabe personally responsible for their empty bellies. "People are hungry. That's what really matters," said Washington Saensole, a former high court judge who is now one of Mr Mugabe's sharpest critics in Matabeleland. "Mugabe wants to make out he is strong with his threats but people see that this is a president who does not even have the capacity to get food to people when they are hungry."
At a small church in Matopos, the congregation feels threatened both by the lack of food and by the political terror visited upon them. But while the violence is sporadic, the hunger is always there. People at the church say 'sadza' - the staple made from maize has disappeared from their diet. Many have only one meal a day. "The president came here recently. He didn't bring food," said LK Dube. "We have had to kill our goats for something to eat or sell them to buy food. But you can only kill them once. We blame the president because he has the power." The anger has been compounded by profiteering. With the shop shelves bare of maize, an illegal trade has sprung up at double the official price. It is usually run by ruling party members and is a source of bitterness in the church.
Mr Mugabe has boosted attendance at his rallies in the region with wholesale food distributions. People began queuing hours before the meetings in Bulawayo and Beitbridge with plastic bags and buckets in hand in expectation of a gift of maize. Most were not disappointed, but it is unlikely to win their votes. Intimidation has risen sharply in recent weeks in an effort to scare the Ndebele into supporting the president, even though they have consistently voted against Zanu PF for more than two decades. The ruling party's militia has rampaged through the region, burning villages and torturing overt opposition supporters. Mr Mugabe's henchmen have threatened collective retribution on those villages that do not support the president. In the church, no one actually says who is bringing the terror. The identities are implicit and unspoken until a girl, about 12 years old, pipes up. "It's Zanu PF. They are forcing people to buy party cards or they beat you," she says. Mr Saensole believes the intimidation will not work. "I detect a mood of determination," he said. "There's a consensus here that Mugabe has to go."
Top
From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 9 March
How Zimbabwe's poll rules were changed to favour ruling regime
Mashonaland - President Mugabe has lost no opportunity to maximise his advantage in Zimbabwe's presidential election, imposing a series of regulations framed to boost his chances. His remaining strongholds are in rural Zimbabwe and every rule is designed to make it easy for people in the countryside to vote and as difficult as possible for everyone else. For those living in the cities, where Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition candidate, has overwhelming support, the regulations are particularly onerous. Mr Mugabe began by disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of voters who are presumed to back his opponent. Under a new citizenship law, tens of thousands of white and mixed race voters have been struck off the roll.
City dwellers have been forced to produce proof of residence, in the form of title deeds, rental agreements or utility bills, in order to register to vote. For the inhabitants of township shacks this is no easy task. People will be allowed to vote only in their home constituencies. Mr Mugabe's land seizures have forced tens of thousands of black farmworkers out of their homes. By moving elsewhere, they lost the vote. Zimbabweans living overseas have been stripped of the vote - except for diplomats and soldiers, who are presumed to back the president. Mr Mugabe's thugs have been ordered to confiscate identity cards from anyone suspected of backing Mr Tsvangirai. No one can vote without this card. Thousands have been disenfranchised in this way.
Mr Mugabe's next step was to slant the conduct of the election in his favour. The number of polling stations in the capital, Harare, has been cut by up to 50 per cent, making it difficult for people to vote. To maximise confusion, the presidential poll in Harare is being combined with a mayoral and city council election. Everyone will cast three votes and the chance of many being lost or placed in the wrong ballot boxes is very high. Meanwhile, the number of rural polling stations has been increased by up to 50 per cent. Hundreds of mobile polling stations will be placed on formerly white-owned farms now seized and handed out to Mr Mugabe's supporters.
Mr Mugabe has also ensured that there will be ample potential to rig the vote without being found out. The government has printed seven million ballot papers, although there are fewer than 5.5 million registered voters. Under new rules, polling agents are prevented from travelling with the ballot boxes from polling stations to counting centres. There will be no scrutiny of the boxes during this vital journey, which in some areas could take several hours. Mr Mugabe hand picks the Electoral Supervisory Commission charged with running the poll. He has stuffed it with army officers and former agents of the C |
