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| Africa Subsaharan |
| Zimbabwe: Spate of Arrests Ahead of Elections |
| 2008-06-06 |
| The detention of presidential contender Morgan Tsvangirai by Zimbabwean police for nearly 12 hours on 4 June is another instance of the orchestrated harassment of opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters and other organisations regarded as out of step with the 28-year rule of President Robert Mugabe, according to analysts. CARE International, one of the largest non-governmental organisations (NGOs) operating in Zimbabwe, has been ordered to suspend its operations for alleged political activity, as have others. Media reports on 5 June said a convoy of British and US diplomatic staff investigating reports of election violence north of the capital were stopped by a police roadblock at Bindura, 80km from Harare, where the tyres of their vehicles were slashed and a Zimbabwean driver was hauled from one of the diplomatic cars and beaten by police. Sean McCormack, the US State Department spokesman, said in a televised briefing from Washington that the incident was "unacceptable", had caused "deep distress" and was the action of a government that "does not know any bounds"; the US would take up the incident in the Security Council. MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa told IRIN that party leader Tsvangirai, his deputy, Thokozani Khupe, party chairperson Lovemore Moyo, as well as other senior party officials and their security detail were stopped at a roadblock, and then held at Lupane police station, north of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city. Tsvangirai, who claims that election rigging cost him victory in the 29 March presidential vote, will contest the run-off ballot on 27 June. He left Zimbabwe soon after the March elections, in which ZANU-PF lost control of parliament for the first time since independence in 1980, and very recently returned to Zimbabwe. He sustained head injuries last year from a beating in police custody and has twice been charged with treason. Chamisa said the party had confirmed the killings of 60 MDC supporters since the March ballot, but this was "a conservative figure", as ZANU-PF had established "no-go" areas where people were "being killed, buried and forgotten". One of the people killed was a local MDC organiser, Tonderai Ndira, who had been arrested 35 times and was taken from his house on 14 May by six armed, masked men. His decomposing body was found a few weeks later. According to reports, a preliminary autopsy by an independent South African pathologist said "it was clear that he died very soon after he was abducted." |
| Posted by:Fred |