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Zimbabwe PM Tsvangirai’s MDC Urges S. Africa’s Zuma to Act on Crackdown

Blessing Zulu & Sandra Nyaira, VOA

Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s formation of the co-governing Movement for Democratic Change is asking South African President Jacob Zuma to intervene to halt what it calls an escalating crackdown on opponents of President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party which is destabilizing the unity government.

Mr. Zuma, mediator in Zimbabwe for the Southern African Development Community, sent a team of facilitators back to Harare on Tuesday to in a bid to patch up the frayed unity government. Zuma foreign policy advisor Lindiwe Zulu said the team is following up on a road-map to elections and lingering issues related to the 2008 Global Political Agreement for power sharing which is the basis of the two-year-old unity government.

She confirmed facilitators will meet the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee late Tuesday and meet Wednesday with negotiators for the three governing parties.

Sources said the top item on the agenda – at least for the MDC – was the recent surge in political violence, continuing invasions of white-owned property, and alleged hate speech carred in state-controlled media including radio, television and newspapers.

The facilitators undertook to consult with JOMIC – established to measure compliance with the Global Political Agreement – more frequently to better follow the situation on the bround. JOMIC sources said the facilitators expressed concern about reported violence.

Tsvangirai MDC sources said they will present the facilitators with documentation on incidents of violence they say were perpetrated by ZANU-PF militants, the police and the army, and wuold urge Mr. Zuma to personally involve himself without further delay.

MDC ministers confronted their ZANU-PF counterparts about the alleged crackdown in a heated cabinet meeting on Tuesday, sources said.

Political analyst Trevor Maisiri told VOA Studio 7 reporter Blessing Zulu that Southern African leaders must change tactics in Harare to get power sharing back on track, and that Zimbabwe needs a full-time mediator “monitoring events every day.”

Meanwhile, former MDC lawmaker Munyaradzi Gwisai and about 50 members of his International Socialist Organization remained behind bars on Tuesday after lawyers failed to secure their release. They are accused of plotting an Egypt-style uprising.

Their lawyer, Marufu Mandevere, told VOA reporter Sandra Nyaira that police were given permission to hold the accused while the attorney general reviewed the case.

Events in the Mideast and North Africa have stirred much discussion in Zimbabwe, but many say an Egyptian-style revolt is unlikely to take place in Harare.

Among them is publisher Ibbo Mandaza who expressed skepticism this week on the VOA Zimbabwe Service’s LiveTalk program, noting that the level of fear among Zimbabweans is considerable and the the country’;s security services are much more closely bound to President Mugabe than in Arab countries where support eroded as protests rose.

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Zimbabwe: Army will crush any Egyptian-style uprising

By Nkosana Dlamini, Harare

Zimbabwe‘s defence minister has said the army will crush any Egyptian-style uprising led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. The latter said last week that there is nothing wrong with people demanding their rights, including in Zimbabwe.

“We in Zanu PF (Mugabe’s party, ed.) are determined to make sure that there is peace,” defence minister Emmerson Mnangagwa said to military commanders in the weekend.

“Those who may want to emulate what happened in Tunisia or what is happening in Egypt will regret it because we will not allow any chaos in this country,” Mnangagwa said.

Dislodging dictators
Tsvangirai, leader of Zimbabwe’s largest opposition party (MDC) currently in a transitional government with Zanu-PF, riled his opponents last week when he said street protests were genuine methods of dislodging dictators.

“To me, when people take their rights, and start demanding more rights, there is nothing wrong with that, including in Zimbabwe. That was the whole purpose of our struggle for the last 10 years,” he told FoxNews in Davos last week.

In the past decade, Tsvangirai organised several mass protests against Mugabe’s rule.

But the protests, which were mainly concentrated in the country’s cities, were ruthlessly crushed by the country’s security forces which have voiced open support for Zimbabwe’s strongman.

Resurfaced violence
Widespread political violence mostly blamed on Mugabe’s militant supporters has resurfaced countrywide. This follows Mugabe’s announcement that Zimbabwe is heading for fresh polls later this year.

Agitated by police’s inaction, youths from Tsvangirai’s party have vowed revenge. “They must be prepared to receive as much as they dish out if this lawlessness continues,” youth leader Thamsanqa Mahlangu said last week.

Although organised protests are seen as a remote possibility in Zimbabwe at the moment due to perceived fear and poor technological infrastructure to fire the protests, authorities fear the threats can provide a spark among crisis-weary Zimbabweans.

Mugabe, who does not hesitate to unleash the military to defend his rule, has put his trust in his long time military advisor Mnangagwa to handle this matter.

Mastermind
A veteran of Zimbabwe’s war of liberation, Mnangagwa has been in Mugabe’s cabinet for almost three decades. As security minister, he was among security chiefs who crushed the 1982 uprisings in the country’s western provinces of Matabeleland where 20 000 civilians from the ethnic Ndebele were killed.

Matabeleland was then a stronghold for the late Vice President Joshua Nkomo’s Zapu party which merged with Mugabe’s party in 1987.

Mnangagwa is also accused of having masterminded in 2008 the killing of over 200 Tsvangirai supporters during a violent military operation that sought to restore Mugabe’s rule.

Mugabe was outpolled by Tsvangirai in Zimbabwe’s inconclusive first round poll. Last year, Mnangagwa vowed that Tsvangirai will never rule the country even if he wins elections.

“If you don’t vote for us in the next election, this country is huge, we will rule even if you don’t want it,” he said.

Although Mugabe has deliberately not been grooming any successor for fear of dividing his party, Mnangagwa is seen as one of the top contenders for his job.

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