Mugabe opponents seek intervention in 'war zone' Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe resembles a war-zone, with thousands of people displaced, hundreds injured and 10 killed by post-election violence, an opposition leader said as he appealed for international intervention.
Tendai Biti, secretary-general of the Movement for Democratic Change, said violence since the March 29 elections had forced 3,000 families out of their homes. Hundreds of people had been taken to hospital with injuries and 10 people killed, he said.
Mr Biti said United Nations organisations in Zimbabwe must be mobilised as the situation had escalated from a political crisis to a humanitarian one.
“They should move as a matter of urgency. They should move because Zimbabwe is a war zone,” he told a news conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, yesterday.
He said key members of the opposition’s administration had been arrested, along with more than 400 supporters.
“We are not able to function because of those arrests,” he said. Mr Biti and Movement for Democratic Change president Morgan Tsvangirai say they cannot return to Zimbabwe as they face immediate arrest.
President Robert Mugabe’s government has accused Mr Tsvangirai of treason and plotting a regime change with former colonial power Britain.
Mr Tsvangirai is widely believed to have beaten Mugabe in the elections, but the results still have not been announced after three weeks.
On Saturday electoral officials began recounting ballots for a couple of dozen legislative seats being challenged – an exercise that could overturn the opposition’s majority win. Most of the seats being recounted were declared for opposition candidates, including in Mugabe’s home district of Zvimba.
Mr Biti said the recount was rigged and the ruling Zanu-PF had tampered with tally sheets and ballot boxes.
“They created fresh ballot papers,” he said. “It is quite clear the dictatorship will do everything ... to try to reverse the people’s victory.”
State-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation said the full recount would take up to three days.
The opposition said this was yet another ploy to delay the publication of the presidential results.
Mr Tsvangirai claims he won more than 50% of the vote, but independent observers said it was unlikely he received an absolute majority.
Mr Biti said Mugabe was desperate.
“He can delay... but he will go,” Mr Biti said. “He hasn’t stolen this election. We are still fighting.”
Meanwhile New York-based Human Rights Watch said “torture and violence are surging in Zimbabwe”.
The ruling party, it said, was setting up “torture camps to systematically target, beat and torture people suspected of having voted for the MDC in last month’s elections”.
International pressure on Mugabe to release the election results continues to mount.
United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon is expected to discuss the Zimbabwe crisis with other African leaders on the sidelines of a five-day UN trade meeting which opened yesterday in Ghana.
Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, himself an African who recently helped broker a peace deal after Kenya’s contested elections, questioned whether leaders on the continent were doing enough to help Zimbabwe resolve what he called “a rather dangerous situation”.
“Where are the Africans? Where are the leaders and the countries in the region? What are they doing? How can they help resolve the situation?” he told journalists in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
