Terror Time Again in Zimbabwe

By Vusumuzi Sifile and John Mokwetsi

ON 6 April, Wellington Gweru, the MDC council candidate who lost his bid to win Ward 10 in Chiweshe, says he decided to spend the night with his family at their uncle’s home in anticipation of an announcement of the presidential election results.

But the results were not announced that night. Gweru, like many other Zimbabweans at that time, returned home a disappointed man.

But sad news awaited him on arrival at his homestead: all his huts had been razed to the ground, with all the property inside reduced to ashes.

“A few days earlier, a number of war veterans and Zanu PF supporters had told me they had been sent by a top Zanu PF official to set fire to my huts because of my opposition affiliation,” he said. “They told me they had been instructed by our chief to deal with me as I was negatively influencing people ahead of the anticipated run-off for the presidential election.”

The Standard could not immediately confirm independently the incidents reported by Gweru of many MDC supporters in the area being terrorised by war veterans and Zanu PF militia.
But police spokesperson, Wayne Bvudzijena confirmed they were “isolated incidents” of violence.

“It is misleading to say the whole country is burning. They are just isolated incidents. I will check those for you”, Bvudzijena said.

After the elections, many Zimbabweans, like Gweru briefly allowed themselves a little hope after President Robert Mugabe suffered what appeared to be a devastating electoral defeat by his old nemesis, Morgan Tsvangirai.

But two weeks on, that hope has turned to fear. Riot police, especially in high-density areas, have made themselves a permanent feature there, imposing a 10PM curfew.
Residents in such high-density areas as Glen View, Budiriro, Mabvuku, Mbare, Mufakose, Highfield and Chitungwiza fear the days of the batons are back.

At Makomva shopping centre in Glen View, it took the eloquence of Glen View South legislator Paul Madzore to convince an angry mob to disperse after the curfew began.
There have been roadblocks manned by the police. People have been ordered to stay indoors at night. There has been a clampdown on the opposition whose offices have been raided by the police. Foreign journalists have been arrested, Zanu PF war veterans have revived the people’s ugly memories of the tension and the violence before, during and after the 2000 parliamentary and the 2002 presidential elections.

Memories of those dark days come flooding back as people fear Zanu PF’s retribution for voting overwhelmingly for the opposition.

There have been reports of lives being lost in this new wave of fresh terror.
The Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) monitors politically motivated violence and human rights abuses.

Last week it reported that soldiers, some wearing masks, raided bars and a public market in Gweru’s Mkoba suburb and assaulted people, reportedly for “failing to vote correctly”.
“Soldiers descended on unsuspecting revellers in bars and late night shoppers, beating them up. The soldiers were allegedly saying the people’s crime, among others, was not to have voted correctly,” said the ZPP.

The organisation said it had received similar reports of violence in Mashonaland East, where a Zanu PF official was said to be waging a campaign of retribution against people suspected to have voted for the MDC. Three victims, Gerald Shamuyarira, Shingi Chigovanyika and Irvine Chimanga, tried to report the official to the police but ended up being arrested themselves.

Churches reported incidents of torture as post-election violence mounted. Zimbabwe National Pastors’ Conference spokesperson, Lawrence Berejena said in Harare last week: “Some people are being seriously tortured, especially in the rural areas. Some have been chased from their homes while others are being denied access to humanitarian aid.”

Last week, the MDC released a list of 200 serving senior officers in the uniformed forces reportedly deployed across the country to command war veterans and Zanu PF youth militia to intimidate people ahead of the anticipated run-off election.

According to the MDC, the service chiefs will be operating “under the guise of war veterans”.

Political analyst Lovemore Madhuku said Zanu PF is cognisant of the fact that only through violence can it win the anticipated run-off.

“This explains the delay in announcing the presidential results,” said Madhuku.” Zanu PF is clearly buying time to intimidate the electorate through the violence now taking place everywhere in Zimbabwe. I must add that this violence is a waste of time.”

The Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC) last week said it had “received information, some of it from sources inside Zimbabwe’s security establishment, indicating that youth militias, Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) operatives and war veterans are being deployed, under the command of approximately 200 senior army officers, throughout the rural areas”.

Nicole Fritz, the director of SALC, said the deployment was part of a “state-sponsored, pre-planned attack on Zimbabwe’s civilian population”.

“The intention seems to be to use violence against and to intimidate voters prior to any run-off or rerun of the elections,” Fritz said.

SALC said “the international and regional communities have a heightened responsibility” to find a solution to the problem in Zimbabwe.

War Veterans’ chairman, Jabulani Sibanda, denied responsibility for any of the incidents of violence, as they are not “a thuggery organization”.

“I have always said as war veterans, violence is not part of our programme,” said Sibanda. “If there is indiscipline by one person that does not mean that is what we are, as war veterans. We are not an organisation of thugs, but that does not mean we are weak,” Sibanda said.

On reports that the war veterans had camped at selected commercial farms, Sibanda said: “Our people went there to check the numbers of white farmers, or aliens at the farms. What we have simply been saying is that if a white man has 10 farms, he has to retreat from nine and have one.”

Sibanda said “the MDC must stop fooling around and prepare for the run-off”. He denied the war veterans were working with the uniformed forces.

Sibanda’s deputy, Joseph Chinotimba, has of late been seen wearing a hat similar to the straw hat he donned at the height of farm invasions in 2000.

Attempts to contact Zanu PF spokesperson on the elections, the defeated Patrick Chinamasa, were fruitless. But last week he told journalists: “We are a peace-loving party and the people of Zimbabwe will not forgive anyone who foments violence.”

The statement may have been received with deep cynicism by many people, some of them victims of the violence which Chinamasa is denying.