elections - MDC - Robert Mugabe - Zimbabwe
Trapped in a Harare nightmare
Saturday 21 June 2008
Less than one week before Zimbabwe's presidential runoff election, opposition members from the Movement for Democratic Change are being violently targeted by ruling-party militias. (Report: A. Duval Smith and E. Jongwe)
Special Report Struggle for leadership in ZimbabweSaturday 21 June 2008
By A. Duval Smith, E. Jongwe / FRANCE 24HARARE - The building’s foundation is the only thing left; everything else vanished into smoke. The remains belong to a municipal councillor of the Zimbabwean Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in Harare. Absent during the fire, his grandmother describes the horrific scene waiting for her when she arrived.
“When I came and I saw that that little person of mine was lying like this, he was lying like this with his hand along to the door and all the matungu (intestines) were out and I started crying and crying and crying. And I didn't know that my mrora (daughter in law) was burnt also.”
The woman continues: “She (the daughter-in-law) was pregnant. While still burning she told me ‘they kicked me mama.’ They kicked her in the stomach.”
Her sister-in-law told her the little she knows about the culprits: “She said they came... five men. They said get in the house. Where is Brian? Where is the councillor who contested for the MDC? We said, 'we don't know. He went there'. And they said 'get in the house'. And then my sister-in-law said they went inside and they threw fire inside and they closed the door.”
Singed with third-degree burns, the councillor’s wife did not survive the attack. He was able to escape through the backdoor just before the attackers arrived. The elderly woman has not received news from him since.
This story is not uncommon in Harare. At least six deputies, senators and councilmen elected from MDC’s ranks on March 29 have disappeared or gone into hiding. The families of the party’s members have been the target of attacks. The wife of the new mayor of Harare was beaten to death in front of her four-year-old son.
These victims can be added to at least 70 other assassinated MDC members, and 25,000 citizens in rural areas who have been displaced by militias to stop them from going to their respective voting stations for Friday’s presidential run-off.
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REPORT
Mugabe warns against cancelling election. 22/06
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"A damned lie."
Mugabe on Tsvangirai
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IN THE FIELD
'The MDC is in a position where it may be able to negotiate a government of national unity,' A.Duval Smith in Cape Town, 21/06 6pm (GMT+2)
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22/06/2008 09:20:18 Alert a moderator
A disgrace
By Ricky -
The situation is simply incredible and the rest of the world simply sits by and does nothing. Countries such as America, England and France should be ashamed....how many more people....woman and children have to be killed by this monster and his regeme before the rest of the world steps in and does something. Forget Mbeki and South Africe. he is useless and I am sure quietly condones what is happening....why? World be careful....if you do nothing in Zimbabwe, what is to stop Mbeki doing the same in South Africa when it is his turn to step down. It is time to show some courage and do something.....now, before thousands die
22/06/2008 06:56:20 Alert a moderator
Another Uganda and Idi Amin?
By Sharon -
The country is in meltdown. With everything else going on, Mugabe thinks he's bomb proof, just as Idi Amin did. He thought he had a god given right to rule and Mugabe is the same. They have both destroyed extremely wealthy and diverse countries and turned them into their own despotic playgrounds. If we can go into a country that was reasonably stable (even with a tyrant like Iraq had) why is Mugabe allowed to go on?
21/06/2008 21:44:06 Alert a moderator
Civil war is imminent.
By JR -
If Mugabe is not going to step down, we are heading into the Zimbabwean Civil War, and the USA has another incentive to get their military out of Iraq. So long Baghdad, hello Harare!