From The Zimbabwean – 20 January 2010
HARARE -Prisons commissioner Paradzayi Zimondi (Pictured) has transformed the Zimbabwe Prison Service (ZPS) into a quasi-military corps, running the correctional service as his personal fiefdom, disgruntled prison officers told The Zimbabwean this week..
They recounted how Zimondi had transmogrified the prison service from its duty to provide correctional services into a full military wing.
Sources revealed systematic plunder of the prison service by the commissioner, and how State resources had been diverted to bankroll Zimondi’s myriad personal enterprises.
Officers said food had been allegedly seized from prisons, leaving prisoners in despair.
After the March 2008 harmonised poll, prison officers recalled how Zimondi seized 100 cattle and 10 horses from Chikurubi Farm, and transferred all prison pigs to his farm. He is said to have brought famished cattle in to replace the heifers he allegedly looted.
Zimondi would seize milk and fresh produce from the farm prison and take it to his restaurant in Ruwa, called Plaka.
“He took building materials from the ZPS stores and built a dairy at his farm in Bromley,” said one officer. “Builders, electricians, carpenters were made to do the work. He built houses in Harare. I worked on some of the projects. We built a house in Milton Park, renovated one in Gunhill, and built a house for the (Justice and legal Affairs) permanent secretary, David Mangota in Donnybrooke using government materials stolen from the ZPS stores,” he said.
Other equipment was also said to have been taken to Zimondi’s two other farms in Shamva and Bindura. There are unconfirmed reports that he co-owns a banana plantation with police commissioner-general Augustine Chihuri.
It was further alleged Zimondi had properties in Kariba, where he is involved in a poaching ring slaughtering elephants for ivory. To over up the tracks, the meat is given to prisoners, but most of the time it is going bad. “He uses prison vehicles to transport the bodies of elephants,” said the officer. “Prison vehicles are not searched at roadblocks, making easy passage.”
Poaching
The poaching was said to be taking place in Gonarezhou and Hwange. The Zimbabwean heard that these activities had been going on since April 2009.
“He has also built a church in Murehwa using prison materials,” another source said.
Officers say that as far back as 1999, Zimondi established a military police branch at the ZPS. From 2001, he brought in soldiers from the Zimbabwe National Army to head all prison departments at the expense of experienced officers, who were forced into early retirement or moved from headquarters to work in prisons.
These military personnel include commissioners Ndlovu, Chihobvu – head of security; Kanonge – finance; Dube – construction, Maredza – projects and Ndebele – quartermaster.
Officers spoke exclusively to this newspaper about the purge of the prison service by Zimondi over the past decade, recounting in meticulous detail harassment and torture of officers suspected of being sympathetic to the MDC.
“From 2000, Zimondi controlled the ZPS cruelly. When Zanu (PF) lost to the MDC (in 2000), Zimondi formed the prisons military police to control and suppress MDC sympathisers in the ZPS. Torture of officers began. When Tendai Biti won the Harare East (constituency) in 2000, he held a celebration rally at Gletwyn Farm near Chikurubi. Officers who attended the rally were arrested and tortured. Some were discharged from their duties. The case was brought before the Rotten Row Magistrates Court. The perpetrators were found innocent and went back to work.”
The tortured officers were named as Shepherd Yuda, Andew Mabidi, Officer Njiri, Officer Bvunzawabaya and Officer Masarakufa, who has sine left the prison service and is now an MDC-T councillor in Mhondoro.
The situation worsened dramatically during the run-up to the sham June 27, 2008 run-off polls. At the heart of Zimondi’s terror campaign were asst commissioner Pambai, the officer-in-charge at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison, the chief superintendent, the superintendent, principal prison officer (PPO), Gavhu, PPO Ndebele, prison officer Choto, prison officer Gonzo, prison officer Moffat, Makurudzo, PPO Malunga, prison officer Nyakahembe, PPO Ngulube.
A security department, allegedly manned by central intelligence organisation operatives Makurudzo, Mthombeni and Nyakahembe masquerading as prison officer, was formed. Efforts to obtain comment from Zimondi were futile at the time of going to print. The ZPS public relations requested written questions, which have been submitted.
Jan 21, 2010 | Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
From The Zimbabwe telegraph – By MCEDISI NKOMO April 20, 2009
The Government of National Unity is on the verge of collapse after a meeting scheduled for Friday was aborted due to clear differences over Mugabe’s disregard of the terms of the GPA agreement which created the GNU, the Zimbabwe Telegraph has established. Mugabe, Mutambara and Tsvangirai were supposed to meet to resolve outstanding issues such as the appointment of Permanent Secretaries, Governors, Attorney General and RBZ Governor.The meeting failed to take place due to clear indications that Mugabe was unwilling to compromise.This forced the Principals to invite the deal-broker Thabo Mbeki to mediate and save the deal from collapsing.This was worsened the the already tense relationship between MDC-T and the Arned forces chiefs who walked out on Tsvangirai when he entered the National Stadium for Independence celebrations.There was very little activity in the capital city, Harare on Saturday to show that people were celebrating the 29th anniversary independence celebrations as most people went about their normal business.
There were no incidents of people being forced to attend celebrations at National Sports Stadium as had been the norm in the past. There were also no fears of rowdy party youths wearing either the Movement for Democratic Change, MDC, or Zanu PF T Shirts.
Bottle stores and hotels were almost empty with the few places open, selling goods at reduced prices. One could buy a beer for US$1 but at other places one could get two beers for the same amount in Harare.
However service chiefs were reportedly said to have shunned Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai as he arrived at the national sports stadium, the venue of this year’s independence celebrations.
The Service chiefs populaly known as JOC or the Junta in February boycotted Tsvangirai’s inauguration ceremony as Prime Minister, were said to have moved out of the national sports stadium when the master of ceremony Media Information and Publicity minister Webster Shamu announced the arrival of Tsvangirai ahead of President Robert Mugabe.
Commander of the defence forces Constantine Chiwenga, Police commissioner General Augustine Chihuri and Prison Commissioner Paradzai Zimondi rose from their seats at the time Shamu was announcing the arrival of Tsvangirai.
They went to stand at the stadium entrance where they waited for President to arrive while Tsvangirai was taking his seat.
The service chiefs last year said they would not salute Tsvangirai even if he was elected the President of the country by the people of Zimbabwe.
Tsvangirai and his deputies Thokozani Khupe and Professor Arthur Mutambara attended the independence ceremony which was held under the theme “Restoring Zimbabwe’s Vibrancy.”
The MDC had urged Zimbabweans from all walks of life to attend the ceremony which it said was coming amid a climate of new-found hope and better prospects for the country.
The MDC had previously not attended Independence Day celebrations because it said the national day had been privatized and parochialised by unilateral political interests.
“As a country, we waged a painful liberation struggle to bring back our dignity and respect for human rights that had been eroded through a century of colonialism,” said the party on the official website of the Prime Minister.
“Our challenge as we celebrate this year’s Independence Day is to look back at the journey we have travelled and begin to carve out a new chapter where we say to ourselves never again should a people be subjected to terror, selective justice, poverty, lawlessness and fear by those that govern them.
This year’s celebrations must rekindle the nation’s hopes and aspirations; especially considering the consummation of the inclusive government in February 2009 which enabled Zimbabweans to open a new chapter of national rebirth.
“Independence means jobs, food, education, shelter, basic freedoms and better health care for everyone. We believe that the direction taken by the political leaders is an important step in the right direction in achieving these fundamentals.”
“As a party, we believe this year’s celebrations must reflect the new era of inclusiveness. The Independence Day programme, the speeches and the general arrangements of this important day must reflect a diverse people working together for the betterment of the country of their birth.
The day must reflect the new-found camaraderie among erstwhile political protagonists in a new political atmosphere that engenders hope and prosperity for the people of Zimbabwe. The nation expects to hear speeches from the leaders of the various political parties who have decided to shelve narrow and partisan political interest for the national good.
This all remains wish full thinking as Mugabe has continously undermined the GNU and the MDC-T .Mugabe has refused to swear in Deputy minister of Agriculture Roy Bennet.
A few weeks back he stripped the ICT Minister Nelson Chamisa part of his responsibilites handing them to his trusted ally Nicholas Goche.
Chamisa has threatened to resign but observers believe Mugabe is just testing the MDC-Ts resolve and he is unlikely to compromise.
The MDC was expected to lead efforts to raise money from the West and to have sanctions removed.However Mugabe’s actions including supporting fresh farm invasions have made it impossible to convince the west thet Zimbabwe has changed.
Apr 21, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »
From The Financial Gazette - Friday, 17 April 2009 15:12
FOLLOWING the broadcast recently of a documentary on SABC exposing inhuman conditions in Zimbabwe’s prisons, three warders allegedly responsible for smuggling cameras in were arrested. They are Thabiso Nyathi, Siyai Muchechedzi and Thembinkosi Nkomo.
They predictably will be punished, but not the prison officials responsible for such cruelty and barbarism that shocked television viewers.
The condition of the skeletal and visibly ill prisoners who featured in the expose titled “Hell Hole” shocked viewers in South Africa and beyond. Surely, this cannot happen in any country in the 21st Century.
The prisoners looked like inmates of Hitler’s concentration camps or Stalin’s gulags. How could a government in this day and age permit people under its care to be treated so sadistically?
The organisation, Zimbabwe Democracy Now, ran advertisements in some South African newspapers this week calling for the resignation of Zimbabwe Prison Services Commissioner Paradzai Zimondi and his two deputies.
In any civilised country, heads would roll. But Zimbabwe no longer meets the standard of a civilised country. As usual, it is those who had the temerity to blow the whistle that will be punished.
They embarrassed the government by exposing its true nature. For that the three warders will be made an example of while those responsible for the despicable conditions in Zimbabwe’s prisons will most probably be promoted.
One of the worst legacies of the ZANU-PF government’s reign will be the manner in which it extended the brutality of the regime to segments of society by enlisting young people to perpetrate all sorts of violent crimes.
Since the formation of the Border Gezi militias about seven years ago, between 10 and 15 000 young people have been turned into robotic torturers, rapists and murderers.
Crude propaganda and substance abuse have combined to turn these youths into callous merchants of violence.
They do so fortified by knowledge that a blanket immunity protects them. Monthly stipends from the state, which are still being disbursed despite the alleged dawn of a new political era, only serve as an added incentive to do anything ordered by those calling the shots.
A culture of violence and impunity has taken root in Zimbabwe especially in the past nine years. Its seeds were, however, sown soon after independence.
Right from the onset, the ZANU-PF government responded with violent brutality to any real or perceived political threat.
Gukurahundi in the 1980s must be seen within this context. In 2000, perpetrators of violence were expanded to include those not in the formal employ of the state.
At first war veterans were at the forefront to give legitimacy to land invasions and attendant violence. Soon afterwards, as the threat posed by the MDC refused to go away, the militia was formed to add numbers and youthful energy to the regime’s campaign of violence. It is important to point out that neither the war veterans nor youth militia could have been effective without the logistical, material and financial support given by the army, police and CIO. The brutalisation of the Zimbabwean society was well underway.
Any respectable country must be built on a foundation of decent values and morality. As the violence in Zimbabwe became increasingly institutionalised, it became acceptable to loot, maim, murder and drive people from their homes.
Through crude propaganda and self-interest, a belief took root that violence against enemies of ZANU-PF was legitimate and justifiable because the party liberated Zimbabwe and was the sole custodian of the interests of its people.
Violence against Ndebeles was justified in the name of defending the revolution. So was violence against white farmers seen as the continuation of the struggle for land.
Members of the MDC were fair game because they were stooges of the British and their kith and kin in Zimbabwe. The list of fair targets grew as the threat against the regime stubbornly persisted. It is a measure of how total the impunity is for those who act in the name of the regime that no one from Gukurahundi to the violence that still continues today, has been arrested and prosecuted.
There are those who will read this and say it is improper to bring this issue up at a time when an inclusive government is trying to heal and reconcile the nation. The answer is simple: If, as is the case, all the crimes committed in the past are swept under the carpet for the comfort and convenience of politicians, nothing will be achieved.
If there is no justice, acknowledgment and compensation for victims, Zimbabwe will not move forward in a meaningful and sustainable way. These past crimes will recur. Putting a plain bandage over a festering wound never heals it.
The brutal excesses of the ZANU-PF era must be officially acknowledged and all forms of redress effected for the poison of the past not to infect a new body politic.
The regime also knew that as long as victims of its terror were poor blacks in rural areas and townships, the world would not go beyond the symbolic gestures of disapproval. No action would be taken to imperil the very existence of the regime.
No one would be brought to justice. It is no coincidence that at the height of land invasions in 2000, of the thousands of white families on farms throughout the country, only nine were murdered.
Blacks were killed in their hundreds. Such an alarming rate among whites would have provoked serious consequences for the regime’s leaders. It is sickening hypocrisy on the part of those who claim to act in the name of black Africans.
All these crimes against people over an extended period take a huge toll on the character of a nation. The humanity of perpetrators is destroyed. They operate in a moral vacuum. Nothing is sacred anymore including the lives of people. No principle is beyond sacrifice.
A culture of lust for power and greed takes over. A deep sense of entitlement lies at the centre of their thoughts and deeds. The nation loses its moral compass.
Leaders become heartless and totally oblivious to the masses’ suffering and squalor. A sense of self-righteousness and invincibility makes it impossible for them to distinguish right from wrong. Fearful and cowed the populace largely submits to this savagery.
It is this environment that makes it possible for prisoners to be allowed to needlessly die of malnutrition, hunger and disease. It is such a system that allows prisoners to live in conditions of disgusting filth in which human excrement is all over the place.
Only people who have lost their humanity can let prisoners live with dead bodies in their cells until they begin to decompose and emit an unbearably foul smell.
If a system does not care about an old lady in the rural areas who has her son murdered and home torched for supporting the opposition, how can it give a toss for prisoners?
The three warders will pay a heavy price for their bravery, patriotism and humanity. They must have known the risk they were taking, but decided to do the right thing by exposing this outrage. For that, all decent people are thankful. Their efforts may well lead to far-reaching prison reforms in the not-too-distant future.
Apr 19, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »
From The Zimbabwe Times – By Sibangani Sibanda, April 8, 2009
MORGAN Tsvangirayi, Tendai Biti and various other members of the former opposition movement in Zimbabwe, which is now part of the inclusive government, have spent time as enforced guests of the Zimbabwean prison system.
One must assume, therefore, that they have experienced first hand, the current conditions in our prisons. One assumes because, to the best of my knowledge, they have not disclosed, in public at least, the conditions under which they were incarcerated for various lengths of time.
When Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) treasurer and deputy Agriculture Minister designate, Roy Bennett, finally walked out of prison last month, he used an expression that has become something of a cliché. He said that he would not wish time in a Zimbabwean prison on his worst enemy.
I must admit that although I sympathized with the man, there was a part of me that thought that these were the sentiments of a white Zimbabwean failing to come to terms with the realities of prison system that thousands, including his own colleagues in the MDC, have endured in silence.
I owe Mr Bennett an apology.
This week, a South African Television channel ran a program on conditions in Zimbabwean prisons based, in part, on Bennett’s experiences. It was sobering and frightening, bringing into our homes, images that I would normally associate with black and white photographs of victims of the Holocaust and television pictures of the Ethiopian famine!
Even taking into account Zanu-PF’s grim record in government, this looked particularly horrific. Yes, they massacred people in Matebeleland in the name of flushing out dissidents. They have routinely abducted, tortured and killed opponents. They have allowed facilities that were once some of the best on the continent to deteriorate to a level where they are a danger to their supposed beneficiaries.
In short, they have been a callous, unfeeling, uncaring government. But to see live human beings living in the conditions that Zimbabwean saw in that documentary was beyond anything that I could have imagined in my county, in the 21st Century!
Now I seriously doubt Bennett will ever be sworn in as deputy minister.
It brought my opinion of Zanu-PF to a new low. Yet I was not completely surprised by this new revelation of the cruelty of a party that has always thrived on the total oppression of its people. What I found frightening was the fact that there had been so much silence on such serious violations of basic human rights at our very door step.
Prison officers who have presided over these death camps have remained silent, even when they have had to preserve the corpses of dead prisoners by covering them with sand onto which they pour water (as was described in the program); they have remained silent when there has not been enough food for the prisoners; doctors who have gone to prisons to attend to patients have said nothing. Even those close to prisoners have remained silent when their relatives have shown signs of emaciation or even told them (as they must have done) of the conditions they were living in.
Commissioner of Prisons, Paradzai Zimondi, has presided over this death and decay with such remarkable hard-heartedness that he thought nothing of dressing a few luck prisoners in bright yellow uniforms – all brand new – to go and sing “Happy 85th Birthday” to President Mugabe in Chinhoyi. At least they had more than a square meal on that day as compensation for the indignity. Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa had the audacity to suggest the emaciated figures appearing on TV screens last week were citizens of another African country.
Many almost believed them. The scenes depicted were just too terrible to be out of Zimbabwe.
And the politicians who have experienced the prison conditions for themselves have also remained silent. It is as if in Zimbabwe, nothing is too appalling. We accept whatever the government throws at us without question – as long as we are in situations that are less appalling.
Zanu-PF, if they were to be asked to account for the state of our prisons would probably blame “sanctions”, but I wonder if they will ever get asked now; now that they are part of a new “inclusive” government. In any case, what sanctions have been imposed on Zimbabwe that would account for such human suffering?
The MDC, who have the majority in Parliament but are the junior partner in the inclusive government have allowed themselves to become partly responsible for the state of our prisons – as they have allowed themselves to be identified with just about every failure of Zanu-PF. They, at least appear to still have some consciences. As they look at redressing all the other messes created by the old government, they should also look at the prisons.
Even those that society wishes to punish have some rights.
Apr 09, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »
From The Harare Tribune – Monday, 06 April 2009
ZANU-PF appointee and card-carrying member, Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, refused to grant bail to MDC activists and a independent journalist who were abducted by the CIO, ZRP, ZNA last year.
The State accuses the three of plotting to overthrow the illegal regime headed by Robert Mugabe last year.
Chidyausiku, a man with multiple farms siezed from their rightful owners, the same man who has benefited from the ZANU-PF corruption over the last ten years, refused to grant them bail saying an earlier High Court ruling was okay.
The three will likely spent more days and weeks in Zimbabwe’s notorious prisons.
Read below for more on the case:
MDC Pressroom–Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku today dismissed a bail application filed by two MDC officials and a journalist who are facing trumped up charges of banditry, insurgency and terrorism.
Chris Dhlamini, MDC head of security, Gandhi Mudzingwa, Prime Minister Hon. Morgan Tsvangirai’s former aide and freelance journalist Andrison Manyere have been in remand prison since December last year.
Justice Chidyausiku denied bail to the three arguing that there was no misdirection to an earlier ruling by High Court Judge Justice Yunus Omerjee.
However, MDC lawyers are going to file another urgent bail application at the High Court tomorrow applying for the immediate release of the three.
The new bail application is expected to be heard on Wednesday. The MDC views the continued detention of the three political detainees as going against the spirit and letter of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) that was signed by the three main political parties last year.
The continued detention of MDC activists has nothing to do with the law but is a product of political machinations of the residual elements in Zanu PF and the securocrats who are waging a perpetual battle to scuttle change by undermining the inclusive government.
The MDC calls for the immediate release of the three prisoners and the scores of MDC activists who are being held in secret locations after they were abducted by State security agents last year.
Apr 07, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »
10 Feb 2009
President Robert Mugabe’s regime has reneged on an agreement to release dozens of opposition activists, who have been abducted and severely tortured to extract false confessions of terrorism, before Wednesday’s swearing in of a power-sharing government in Zimbabwe.
Doctors’ affidavits seen by the Guardian reveal a pattern of torture of many of the 30 political and human rights activists held by the state for months. Nine of the prisoners seen by doctors were subjected to simulated drowning, being hung by their wrists in handcuffs and beaten, and high-voltage electric shocks.
One man was hung upside down from a tree and dumped into a water-filled drum until he passed out.
A 72-year-old man was held in a deep freeze before scalding water was poured on his genitals.
Human rights lawyers say the detainees have been tortured to force them to falsely confess to bomb attacks on police stations or plots to overthrow Mugabe, in an attempt by his regime to justify further state violence against the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
The MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, had demanded the release of the detainees, who include his own security chief and a former close aide, as a condition for being sworn in on Wednesday as prime minister in a power-sharing government with Mugabe.
A deal was reached between the MDC and Nicholas Goche, a senior negotiator in Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF, for 16 detainees to be released.
Some were to be taken to hospital last Friday and then quietly freed by a judge in order for the regime to save face. Eight were to appear in court on Monday on the understanding they would be freed.
But none of the detainees were produced after the prisons commissioner, Major-General Paradzai Zimondi, refused to hand them over.
Zimondi is a hardline member of the Joint Operations Command (JOC), which acts as Mugabe’s security cabinet. JOC organised the campaign of terror, beatings and killings against MDC supporters during last year’s elections. The general has threatened violence against the opposition, and recently he burst into a court and broke up a hearing on the release of some of the detainees.
The MDC is interpreting Zimondi’s intervention as evidence that the JOC intends to subvert the power-sharing administration by continuing the violence and intimidation against Tsvangirai’s officials and supporters.
Suspicion over Mugabe’s intent has been further reinforced by what the MDC says is false allegations of corruption laid against seven of its MPs last week in an attempt to overturn the party’s newly won majority in Parliament.
The tortured detainees include Kisimusi “Chris” Dhlamini, a former officer in the Central Intelligence Organisation, who became the MDC’s head of security.
According to an affidavit from a doctor who examined Dhlamini in Harare’s maximum security prison, he was repeatedly assaulted, including being subjected to simulated drowning, hung by his wrists in handcuffs, beaten and burned. The affidavit said there were injuries consistent with high-voltage electric shocks as well.
Gandi Mudzingwa, Tsvangirai’s former personal assistant, was severely beaten with sticks, kicked, subjected to simulated drowning and had his feet smashed with bricks.
Doctors’ affidavits on other prisoners show they were subjected to similar tortures, particularly having their heads forced underwater. A 72-year-old MDC activist, Fidelis Chiramba, was forced into a freezer, stripped naked and had his genitals burned with hot water.
Eight women are being held, including Jestina Mukoko, the director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, who was abducted and tortured, and has been held in prison since last year, accused of training insurgents in Botswana to overthrow Mugabe. – guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media 2009
Mar 26, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »
Zim Online - by Nqobizitha Khumalo, Monday 12 May 2008
BULAWAYO – Zimbabwe prisons chief Paradzai Zimondi is funding and feeding ruling ZANU PF party militias terrorising and murdering opposition supporters in Mashonaland East province, a human rights group has said.
The Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) said Zimondi sheltered and fed the ZANU PF terror gangs at his piggery farm in Uzumba district in the province from where they unleashed violence against suspected members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party.
The group’s director Jestina Mukoko said: “We are aware of a high ranking officer Paradzai Zimondi who runs a piggery in Chidondo in Uzumba in Mashonaland East province who is feeding and funding the youths who are perpetrating the violence and are terrorising and beating villagers.”
Zimondi – who is among top security commanders loyal to President Robert Mugabe’s rule and who have publicly threatened to stage a military coup if the veteran leader was defeated in elections – was not immediately available for comment on the matter.
The ZPP and other human rights groups have long accused the army and other state security agencies of spearheading and directing a campaign of violence and murder by ZANU PF youths and war veterans that the MDC says has killed at least 24 of its members and displaced another 5 000, while 800 homesteads have been burnt down.
But this is the first time that a senior government security officer is being directly linked to political violence.
Mukoko, who was speaking at a workshop for journalists that ended in Bulawayo on Saturday, said her organisation had begun a campaign to name and shame all those involved in perpetrating violence against defenceless civilians.
“The masters of violence are ZANU PF, its supporters and state security agents and it is worrying and very sad for people to go to the extent of burning livestock and plucking out eyes of goats because the owner voted for the opposition, it is very sad,” said Mukoko.
Political violence broke out in many parts of Zimbabwe almost immediately it became clear that the MDC and its leader Morgan Tsvangirai had defeated Mugabe and his ZANU PF party in the March polls.
The MDC, Western governments and human rights groups have accused Mugabe of unleashing ZANU PF militias and the army to beat and torture Zimbabweans into backing him in a second round presidential ballot.
The run-off presidential election is due to be held at a yet unknown date after the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe but failed to garner more than 50 percent of the vote needed to take power under the country’s electoral laws.
United Nations chief Ban Ki-Moon, the United States and Zimbabwe’s former colonial power Britain have urged African leaders to do more to pressure Mugabe to end violence in Zimbabwe which is also battling unprecedented economic recession and food shortages.
The Zimbabwe government denies authorising violence and instead says it is the MDC that has carried out political violence to tarnish Mugabe’s name. – ZimOnline.
Mar 26, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »
