The Star (SA),
18th June 2008

Lawyers say his continued detention is an enormous challenge to SADC

A Harare High Court judge has refused to free top opposition politician and mediator Tendai Biti even though police failed to charge him with any crime six days after he returned home and was immediately arrested. Biti, secretary-general of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and one of its representatives in President Thabo Mbeki’s mediation attempts, was arrested on Thursday as he stepped off a plane at Harare International Airport after spending two months in South Africa. The decision comes as the French government called on Zimbabwe to release Biti and allow him to take part in Morgan Tsvangirai’s campaign in the second round of the presidential election on June 27. Judge Samuel Kudya dismissed argument that the arrest warrant served on Biti, which ordered that he should immediately be brought before a magistrate, had been ignored. In addition, the court heard that Biti had not been charged within 48 hours of being arrested as demanded in law, and therefore, his lawyer Lewis Uriri argued, he should be released immediately. “I am not satisfied that the applicant has demonstrated before me for whatever he is calling continued detention is unlawful. I therefore dismiss the application with costs,” Judge Kudya said last night.

Police say they will charge Biti with treason today, using a clumsy, ill-written document that the defence says was authored by the Central Intelligence Organisation shortly before the first round of elections on March 29. Biti is also likely to be charged with causing disaffection among the security forces and bringing the name of President Robert Mugabe into disrepute, all charges which refer to the crude five-page memorandum on “Transition” that Biti is accused of writing.

Another senior Zimbabwean lawyer, David Coltart, founding legal secretary of the MDC and elected a senator on March 29, said last night: “This is brazen. Here we have a man who the police have said for weeks they wanted to arrest. So they could have done whatever investigations they needed to do in that time. The accusations are based on a document, not based on evidence of any third parties. The law in Zimbabwe over the last eight years has not been an instrument of justice, it has been a weapon in the hands of Zanu PF. This is a shocking, brazen, outrageous breach of due process.” Coltart said the continued detention of Biti was an “enormous challenge” to the Southern African Development Community, which claimed to be mediating in the Zimbabwean crisis. “Will SADC ignore this? If it does, it becomes lumped with Zanu PF. Is SADC going to defend the basic tenets of democracy or not?”

Some SADC observers have arrived in Zimbabwe in the last few days but weeks after Zanu PF violence has made the possibility of a fair election impossible. Scores of MDC officials are in detention and none can campaign for Tsvangirai ahead of the run-off on June 27.

The Independent
By Daniel Howden and Raymond Whitaker
Monday, 2 June 2008

Tonderai Ndira will not be campaigning when Zimbabwe votes again. He will not rally his neighbourhood, as he did two months ago, for one last push against an unwanted regime. Instead, he is buried in an unmarked grave in the Warren Hills cemetery in Harare. A week on from his funeral, only his brother knows for sure which of the mounds is his. He will not leave a marker because he believes state agents are still not finished with the murdered activist. They would like to dig up his brother’s remains to remove the incriminating evidence.

Mr Ndira’s body was only found by accident in one of the capital’s morgues a fortnight ago. The 30-year-old was so badly beaten his father had trouble identifying him. A distinctive ring confirmed the identity of a man compared by some to South Africa’s murdered rights activist, Steve Biko.

Mr Ndira, a lifelong campaigner for political change, had been arrested more than 30 times but kept up his opposition to the government that has led Zimbabweans to the lowest life expectancy in the world. His remains – a crushed skull, a bullet wound through the chest and blood-stained shorts – are a depressing metaphor for Zimbabwe in the aftermath of a stolen election.

On 27 June, this bankrupt and terrorised country will go back to the polls. A wave of abductions, punishment beatings and murders of opposition activists is under way in an attempt to turn the outcome on its head and prolong the rule of President Robert Mugabe. This effort has entered a new phase and, while the bodies of the disappeared are starting to turn up in the mortuaries, more are being abducted all the time. At least 50 have died, 1,500 have been treated in hospital, 25,000 have been driven from their homes and countless more have lost their livelihoods.

David Coltart, an opposition senator, says violence in rural areas where the ruling Zanu-PF party did badly in the March poll, mainly in the north and north-east, has intensified. Speaking in London, the human rights lawyer said an estimated 25,000 people had been displaced in the past three weeks and the authorities had begun targeting individuals in the “second and third tier” of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

It was in this phase that Mr Ndira met his fate. His circumstances echo those of scores of others victimised in a state-sponsored campaign to beat the MDC into submission. A veteran of numerous arrests and internments, beatings and torture, Mr Ndira was accustomed to keeping on the move and staying one step ahead of the state security apparatus. Two weeks ago, suffering from exhaustion, he returned home to Mabvuku township outside Harare. Before dawn, say his family and other witness, a group of about 10 men, some masked and carrying Kalashnikov AK-47 rifles, appeared at his doorstep and demanded to see him. His wife called out to him and he asked the visitors to call back later. Instead, they burst into the activist’s home and beat him in front of his two young children, before dragging him outside and into a truck, bloodied and still in his underwear.

In the weeks that followed his abduction, his family made frantic efforts to obtain any details about what happened to him. What took place can only be surmised by the unidentified, broken body that was found in a field in Goromonzi, 20 miles outside the capital, and taken to the mortuary at Harare’s Parirenyatwa hospital. Mr Ndira was reportedly identified only after someone recognised the mutilated corpse from its tall and thin frame and guessed the rest.

It was a fate that would not have surprised the man himself. Interviewed by the BBC’s Panorama programme in 2002, Mr Ndira said: “We are prepared to die. It is just the same, we are still dying in Zimbabwe. We are dying by hunger, by diseases, everything, so there is nothing to fear.”

Fear is exactly what the Mugabe regime is counting on as it looks to overturn a first-round defeat that saw 56 per cent of the country voting against the only president they have known since independence, and saw his party lose its majority in the lower house of parliament. The octogenarian leader, who famously boasted that he has a “degree in violence”, is relying on state security personnel backed up by paid militias to prevent a similar result in the run-off ballot.

The outcome of the first round was withheld for more than five weeks before the government conceded that Mr Tsvangirai had beaten Mr Mugabe by six points, though falling just short of an overall majority because a third candidate, Simba Makoni, took a small share of the vote.

A leading Zimbabwean army general has called on the nation’s soldiers to vote for Mr Mugabe in the run-off or quit the military, the state-run Herald newspaper reported. The chief of staff, Major-General Martin Chedondo, told troops: “Soldiers are not apolitical. Only mercenaries are apolitical. We have signed up and agreed to fight and protect the ruling party’s principles of defending the revolution. If you have other thoughts, then you should remove that uniform.” He added that Mr Mugabe was head of the defence forces and “we should therefore stand behind our commander-in-chief”. This echoes a similar statement by the joint chiefs of staff before the first round, in which they said they would not recognise any government other than that of Mr Mugabe, and they would refuse to salute Mr Tsvangirai if he won.

The MDC leader returned to Zimbabwe only last weekend, having stayed abroad for most of the past two months amid fears for his safety. On Friday, he gave what he called a “state of the union” address in which he called for a “new era of governance” in the country. Publicly, Mr Tsvangirai has said he remains confident that Zimbabweans will defy the intimidation campaign. However, there are serious concerns as to whether a democratic shift is at all possible. “We are witnessing the actions of a government which has thrown caution to the wind and will do anything to win the run-off,” said Mr Coltart.

Despite this, he believes Mr Tsvangirai still has an “excellent chance” of defeating Mr Mugabe. In March, he said, the urban vote was low because of scepticism about the electoral process. The surprise result that time is likely to lead to a sharp increase in turnout in Harare and Bulawayo, increasing the overall vote by up to 300,000, most of which is likely to go to the MDC candidate.

The Zimbabwean
Saturday, 31 May 2008

“Instead of being a source of hope to the people, the police have become a threat.”

HARARE

Deadly AK47 rifles have become the weapon of choice for thugs involved in murder, kidnapping and torture throughout Zimbabwe.

Suspiciously, though, the police have not been able to apprehend a single suspect in all the cases involving the illegal use of AK47s or other firearms. A substantial number of the 50 Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) activists murdered after March 29 were kidnapped by men with AK47 rifles.

Over the years, this Gukurahundi style of abduction and disappearance of activists has left the state as the lead suspect.
At Murambinda in April 2000, for example, two alleged killers driving a Zanu (PF) Manicaland Nissan twin-cab truck approached MDC activists Tichaona Chiminya and Talent Mabika. The two killers pointed AK47s and petrol-bombed the MDC group. Mabika and Chiminya died.

Later that year, David Coltart’s chief polling agent, Patrick Nabayana, was abducted by men allegedly carrying AK47 rifles. His body has never been found.

The following year, 10 men with AK47 rifles abducted Bulawayo war veterans leader Cain Nkala. His decomposing body was later found in a shallow grave near Solusi University. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai blamed Zanu (PF) for Nkala’s death.
A pointer to who the perpetrators of these abductions really are is contained in an Amnesty International (AI) report, dated June 2002, and entitled Toll of Impunity.

The human rights agency says “these violations were primarily committed by members of ‘state sponsored militia’ and also by state security forces – police officers, army officers or agents of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO)”.

The carnage continues. In the early hours of May 14, nine men armed with AK47 rifles abducted MDC Harare Province Secretary for Security Tonderai Ndira. He was found dead a few days later with severed lips and tongue. Tragically. Ndira is just one of more than 45 MDC supporters already reported murdered.

The BBC
30th May 2008

Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has described the country under President Robert Mugabe as an “unmitigated embarrassment” to Africa.

He said that during 28 years of Mr Mugabe’s rule, services such as education and healthcare had gone from the best in Africa to among the worst.

He is standing against Mr Mugabe in a run-off election at the end of June.

Zimbabwe’s justice minister said a Tsvangirai victory would plunge the nation into crisis.

Mr Tsvangirai was speaking at a gathering of parliamentarians from his party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and media in the Zimbabwean capital Harare.

This was, in effect, his election manifesto, the BBC’s Peter Greste reports from Johannesburg in neighbouring South Africa.
‘Gratuitous violence’

The MDC leader again condemned the ruling Zanu-Pf party for what his party insists is a campaign of intimidation and violence.

He said there would be no amnesty for anyone responsible for political attacks.

“The violence that is currently taking place must stop,” he said.

“There will be no tolerance or amnesty for those who continue to injure, rape and murder our citizens. We consider these acts as criminal acts, not political acts.”

Senator David Coltart, a human rights lawyer and a member of the MDC, described for the BBC some of the attacks on supporters of his party.

“Gratuitous forms of violence… shocking brutality,” he said.

“And I think that has caused the Morgan Tsvangirai statement. It amounts to a plea in desperation to get this violence to stop.”

Mr Tsvangirai listed Zimbabwe’ s problems as:

“The world’s highest inflation, 80% unemployment, education that has plummeted from the best in Africa to one of the worst and a healthcare system that has dire shortages of doctors, nurses, medicines, beds and blankets.”

But the country, he insisted, was about to witness a “new and different era of governance” under the MDC, which won a narrow majority in the parliamentary election in March.

The Justice Minister, Patrick Chinamasa, said the MDC was to blame for the country’s troubles.

He accused the intelligence services of the UK and the US of acting as a sinister third force to undermine the ruling party’s revolution.

“We are aware that the intelligence services have been involved in some of the acts of politically motivated violence,” he said, speaking in the South African capital Pretoria.

That is something the MDC, Britain and the US have all denied, our correspondent notes.

The justice minister, who lost his seat in the election, said an opposition victory in the run-off vote would reverse the gains of the revolution and destabilise the country.

In the News UK
Thursday, 29 May 2008

Robert Mugabe is waging a campaign of violence against the MDC. He is attempting to cling to power in Zimbabwe as pressure for change builds and builds.

Robert Mugabe is waging a campaign of intimidation and violence against Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), a senior party figure has claimed.

David Coltart, re-elected as a senator in the March 29th parliamentary elections, said Mr Mugabe’s supporters had committed “a fresh crime against humanity” in the last five weeks.

Increased abductions, displacements and the “gratuitous use of violence” all form part of the targeted campaign being conducted by Mr Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party since the first-round election.

That took place two months ago today and, after a lengthy delay, saw the MDC take control of the country’s parliament. The MDC’s Morgan Tsvangirai failed to win an absolute majority in the presidential contest, prompting the current run-off campaign and Mr Mugabe’s reign of terror.

Speaking at an event hosted by thinktank Policy Exchange in London, Mr Coltart compared the current crisis to the Gukuruhundi, the 1983 campaign which resulted in the deaths of 20,000 civilians.

The month after the election saw the number of human rights violations in Zimbabwe increase tenfold, he said, with second- and third-tier leadership levels of the MDC and the north-east of the country singled out for special attention.

“A new operation has unfolded. It is increasingly clear that Zanu-PF has organised a brutal campaign to root out people who voted for, or were in junior leadership positions in, the MDC under Morgan Tsvangirai,” Mr Coltart said.

By May 16th Harare hospital had treated 1,600 victims of the violence alone while 22 deaths among MDC supporters had been confirmed, he claimed. One man was found with his eyes gouged out and his tongue cut out.

“We face a very serious situation. These are the actions of a government which has thrown caution to the wind. The government will do anything to win the runoff,” Mr Coltart continued.

“[It is] a vicious plan of action designed to intimidate the electorate and destroy or at least disrupt party centres.”

Despite these problems the senior opposition figure, who co-founded the MDC but supported a separate faction to Mr Tsvangirai’s in the first-round poll, remains upbeat ahead of the second-round vote on June 27th.

He says the reunited MDC will command a substantial lead at the polls, with the eight per cent of voters backing third-placed candidate Simba Makoni expected to come across “en masse” for Tsvangirai.

The MDC also hopes to reverse low voter turnout in Harare, Bulawayo and other big urban centres, where disillusionment in the first round had seen less than a third of eligible voters turning out.

“We can easily make up the numbers. People now know why they need to end this nonsense,” Mr Coltart continued.

“This is primarily a psychological battle. The rank and file [in Zimbabwe’s police and military] simply cannot come out, but they understand… the only chance for the future is a change.”

Despite this optimism Mr Coltart admitted problems with voterigging are “far worse than ever” in the approach to the run-off.

A defective voter roll, the displacement of many MDC supporters to places where they cannot vote and a lack of free media are among the factors which make the elections “failed” in terms of being free and fair.

The larger diaspora problem, police routinely banning meetings and state resources only being made available to one party “excessively” add to the problems, Mr Coltart explained.

“The country is paralysed. It is very hard to convey how serious the human rights violations are and the impact this has had on the mood – there is a climate of fear in the country.”

The run-off takes place on June 27th.

The Sydney Morning Herald
Robyn Dixon in Johannesburg
May 26, 2008

JOHANNESBURG: Zimbabwe hangs in dangerous political limbo: the ruling clique clings to power amid rumours of a coup if the incumbent, Robert Mugabe, loses the presidential run-off.

His opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, far from facing down military hardliners, has returned to Harare after weeks of self-imposed exile, fearing assassination.

As regional leaders dither, a new wave of systematic abductions and killings of top opposition activists suggests a regime unwilling to leave office, even if it loses the second round, scheduled for June 27.

“There’s no way we are going to lose the run-off,” a senior ruling party figure said. “We are going to make sure of that. If we lose … then the army will take over.

“Never be fooled that Tsvangirai will rule this country. Never,” the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said in Harare, the capital.

Human rights organisations, including the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights, say the level and intensity of the violence far surpasses the violence around elections in 2000 and 2002. Mr Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change says 43 activists have been killed since the first round of voting on March 29.

The opposition charges that the Government is targeting its top activists and officials, saying that at least six have been abducted in the past 10 days by armed security officials, and four have been found dead, after severe beatings and torture. An MDC official said 10 others are missing and feared dead.

At a news conference in Harare on Saturday, hours after arriving from Johannesburg, Mr Tsvangirai said leaders in southern Africa had guaranteed his safety and assured him that election monitors would arrive by June 1 to prevent further violence against his supporters.

“I return to Zimbabwe with a sad heart,” he said. “Even since my return a few hours ago, I have met and listened to the stories of the innocent people targeted by a regime seemingly desperate to cling to power, a dictatorship that has lost the support of the people.”

Some analysts see a mounting threat of a coup, convinced that the punitive violence has only increased Mr Mugabe’s unpopularity in the weeks since he was shocked by his loss to Mr Tsvangirai in the first round. But others predict the regime will opt for at least the pretence of legitimacy, rigging the elections rather than overturning a Tsvangirai victory with military force.

With the rank and file disgruntled at conditions and about the farms and fancy lifestyles of commanders, some predict a coup would split the army.

“It’s the senior officers running the terror campaign in the rural areas,” said Morris, 35, an army captain who did not want his last name published. “It’s being done by colonels and lieutenant-colonels. The lower ranks don’t want what is happening. If the old man lost, he should just give up,” he said, referring to Mr Mugabe.

A report by the International Crisis Group said there was “a growing risk of a coup either before the run-off, in a pre-emptive move to deny Tsvangirai victory, or after a Tsvangirai win”.

An opposition politician, David Coltart, believed there was a risk of a coup. “I think they’re intent on trying to give it some sort of legitimacy through an election.”

Los Angeles Times

Intellpuke
24 May 2008
By Robyn Dixon

Zimbabwe hangs in a dangerous political limbo: A ruling party clique clings to power amid rumors of a coup if President Robert Mugabe loses the upcoming presidential runoff. His opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, far from facing down military hard-liners, has been out of the country for weeks, fearing assassination.

As regional leaders dither, a new wave of systematic abductions and killings of top opposition activists suggests a regime that is unwilling to leave office, even if it loses the second round of voting, scheduled for the end of next month.

“There’s no way we are going to lose the runoff,” one senior ruling party figure said. “We are going to make sure of that. If we lose the runoff, then the army will take over.

“Never be fooled that Tsvangirai will rule this country. Never,” the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said in an interview in Harare, the Zimbabwean capital.

Rights organizations, such as Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights, say the level and intensity of the violence far surpasses that surrounding elections in 2000 and 2002. Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change says 43 activists are known to have been killed since the March 29 vote.

The opposition says the government is targeting its top activists and officials and that at least six have been abducted in the last 10 days by heavily armed security officials. Four have been found dead, it says, their bodies showing signs of severe beating and torture. Ten others are missing and feared dead.

MDC activist Tonderai Ndira was dragged from his bed last week by eight security operatives. His body was found Wednesday, dumped in the bush. His brother Barnabas said Ndira’s face had been beaten so badly it was unrecognizable.

Some analysts see the threat of a coup growing, convinced that the punitive violence in Zimbabwe has only increased Mugabe’s unpopularity since he was shocked to find himself in second place behind Tsvangirai in the March vote. Others predict the regime, wary of regional isolation, will opt for at least the pretense of legitimacy, rigging the elections rather than using military force to overturn a Tsvangirai runoff victory.

Mugabe is backed by a group of cronies that includes Rural Housing Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, Defense Forces Commander Gen. Constantine Chiwenga and Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri. Several elite units, including the Presidential Guard, the Fifth Brigade and the National Rapid Reaction Force, are loyal to his regime.

With the military rank and file deeply disgruntled over their working conditions and angry about the farms, SUVs and fancy lifestyles of their commanders, some predict that a coup would split the army.

“What they also have to worry about is whether they can keep their troops with them,” said a Harare diplomat, also speaking on condition of anonymity. “There’s a great risk they will split the very institution they rely on for support.”

In fact, the rank and file are so alienated that they have not been called in to intimidate and attack opposition members, as they have been in the past.

“It’s the senior officers running the terror campaign in the rural areas,” said Morris, 35, an army captain who spoke to The Times by phone, declining to allow his second name to be published for fear of reprisal.

“They’re burning houses and beating people. It’s being done by colonels and lieutenant colonels. The lower ranks don’t want what is happening. If the Old Man lost, he should just give up. He should respect the wishes of the people,” said Morris, referring to the 84-year-old Mugabe. “Soldiers are very much angry about him. They want him removed from power.

“Soldiers go about in tattered uniforms,” said Morris. “Everything is pathetic. Of all the general population, the people hardest hit are the military. There’s no food in the camps. The officers keep giving us empty promises. At times there are no rations.”

He said some senior officers were also no longer loyal to Mugabe.

“The problem now is they can’t come out, because the higher ranks, the generals, are loyal to the ruling party. They can’t come out for fear of their lives.”

The ruling ZANU-PF party lost control of parliament in the March elections, and, according to official results, Tsvangirai won about 48% of the presidential vote compared with 43% for Mugabe, necessitating the June 27 runoff. The opposition insists that Tsvangirai won in the first round, with 50.3%, and the United States and Britain have questioned the credibility of the official results.

Mnangagwa, the most powerful figure behind Mugabe, is the leader of one of two rival factions in ZANU-PF that have been fighting over succession since last year. As the president’s heir apparent, Mnangagwa has the most to lose from a Mugabe defeat. When Mugabe faced a potential challenge last year, Mnangagwa swung his support to him on the understanding that he would succeed him six months after the election.

Mnangagwa, like the so-called “securocrats” in the security apparatus, fears prosecution if Tsvangirai wins. He was security minister during massacres in Matabeleland in the early 1980s in which thousands of Mugabe’s political opponents were killed. The precedent-setting war-crimes prosecution of former Liberian leader Charles Taylor has complicated the departure of Mugabe’s regime.

A recent report by the International Crisis Group, a watchdog organization, said there was “a growing risk of a coup either before the runoff, in a preemptive move to deny Tsvangirai victory, or after a Tsvangirai win.”

Opposition lawmaker David Coltart said he believed there was a risk of a coup, but he added, “I think they’re intent on trying to give it some sort of fig leaf of legitimacy through an election.

“Their first prize is obviously votes in the ballot box to get Mugabe to win. Their Plan B, if they don’t feel that will happen, is that they will just blatantly rig the election. An openly declared coup would be very difficult for the region to stomach.”

The ZANU-PF runoff “campaign,” which is under the control of top military commanders, consists of ubiquitous newspaper advertising, state media propaganda and the violence against the opposition.

Witnesses and victims interviewed by the Los Angeles Times have named ruling party officials as helping oversee the violence, with beatings carried out mainly by mobs of ruling party youths.

It is unclear what effect the violence will have on the voter turnout. One aim seems to be to send a signal to voters that whatever they do, Tsvangirai will never rule, making voting for him futile and dangerous.

If the regime does hold on to power, it would be “catastrophic,” according to the ICG report. It says the economy’s decline would intensify, with more Zimbabweans fleeing the country, “while inflation, unemployment and the resultant massive suffering would increase.”

Even if it stays in power through a coup or election fraud, said the diplomat, “you have to ask yourself, ‘Well, then what do they do?’ They have no options for any sustainable situation here. They have no resources. There’s not a great deal left to loot. You can’t dig gold out of the ground without electricity. They’re completely isolated.”

Business Day
By Michael Bleby – Writer at Large
Wednesday 14 May 2008

NEWS of a second Khampepe report, the analysis Judge Sisi Khampepe wrote with Judge Dikgang Moseneke for President Thabo Mbeki of the skewed 2002 Zimbabwean presidential election and which he has sat on since then, has got a number of people hot under the collar.

The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) is baying for Mbeki’s blood. And murmurs are growing among the African National Congress’ tripartite alliance partners for a more robust approach to dealing with Zimbabwe and President Robert Mugabe. They may be reassured, however, to know that the same report has also been a source of great frustration to Mbeki.

In 2004, Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) dropped a bid to force Mbeki to release the report under access to information legislation. While the party did not say at the time why it was giving up the chase, senior party member David Coltart now says it was under pressure from Mbeki.

“Mbeki threw his toys out of the cot,” Coltart says. “He got hold of Morgan Tsvangirai through Welshman Ncube and quashed the whole thing.

“He quashed our attempts to use South African legislation to compel the production of the report. He was very angry about it. It was a warning that it would endanger their relationship.”

The report by Khampepe and Moseneke, now deputy chief justice, cited a range of problems with the 2002 poll that the MDC said allowed Mugabe to steal the election. These included a failure to properly constitute the Electoral Supervisory Commission; a change in the Electoral Act to give Mugabe, rather than parliament, authority to amend electoral law; and the change of wording in the Electoral Act to stymie challenges to election findings.

Mbeki has not publicly released the report. Back in 2002, his government endorsed the view of SA’s official observer mission led by businessman and former ambassador Sam Motsuenyane that the poll “should be considered legitimate”.

According to Advocate Jeremy Gauntlett — who represented the MDC in its challenges to the election report and who wrote about the report earlier this week — it confirms details of abuses that were widely reported at the time.

However, analysts say it was very unlikely Mbeki would have ever released such a report.

To publicly criticise Mugabe with it would only have alienated him and reduced any negotiating hold Mbeki had with him, both as neighbour and, from last year, as the nominated negotiator for the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
“One of the more striking things about Zimbabwe has been the polarisation of the two sides and the lack of a middle ground. Mbeki’s tried to occupy that middle ground,” says Chris Maroleng, a senior researcher at the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies.

“This limits his ability to make what you could describe as telling public condemnations of the clearly skewed political environment.”

Mbeki’s spokesman Mukoni Ratshitanga agrees.

“Our efforts are concentrated solely, wholly on ensuring that the mediation, the current mediation process succeeds. We are not going to be diverted to discuss things which for all intents and purposes militate against the success of that process. We can’t. It would not be responsible,” Ratshitanga says.

Mugabe, who reacts with “intransigence” when faced with public criticism, would have labelled Mbeki a lackey of western powers and refused to deal with him, had he released the Khampepe-Moseneke report, Maroleng says.

“President Mbeki has tried to manoeuvre this minefield and steer away from this trap. In many cases it’s resulted in a decline in confidence in him by the MDC because they don’t see the efficacy of the approach”.

Where Mbeki’s approach has succeeded, says Maroleng, was in the successful agreement late last year to amend Zimbabwe’s constitution to make changes ahead of this year’s election that saw individual polling stations release their own results locally, as well as curbing Mugabe’s ability to nominate members of parliament of his choosing.

While this policy of working at the level of structural reform did bear some fruit, it did not “tinker with the small aspects” such as election violence and left Mbeki open to charges that he was a willing accomplice of Mugabe, Maroleng says.

Siphamandla Zondi, an Africa analyst at the Midrand-based Institute for Global Dialogue, says it is likely Mbeki used the report at the 2002 SADC leaders’ summit in Dar es Salaam. At that summit, the SADC’s organ on politics, defence and security co-operation paid a level of attention to the Zimbabwean problems that put Mugabe on the defensive.

“Where did the organ get all this information?” Zondi says. “It must have been this report fed into the organ. It was unusual for the SADC to pay so much attention to this topic. There was coverage. Mugabe was uncomfortable with the attention paid to his country. He was uncomfortable with the SADC saying it was in solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe. That was different from saying they were in solidarity with the government of Zimbabwe.”

Not everyone agrees with the idea that Mbeki used the report.

“As far as I’m aware the report was buried,” says Coltart. “We don’t have any information it was ever used anywhere .”

The DA, which also tried for the release of the report, says the same thing.

“I don’t think he would have acted on it at all,” said Joe Seremane, DA federal chairman and a member of Parliament’s committee on foreign affairs.

“I don’t see why it should be under wraps. I wouldn’t want to keep under wraps something that shows where the problem lies,” he said.

Despite the recent noise by African National Congress president Jacob Zuma and ANC allies about a harder line on Zimbabwe, Maroleng says a Zuma presidency would not differ much in its foreign policy.

“Jacob Zuma was the deputy president during the exact period we’re looking at and I don’t recall him during that period making statements that were significantly in variance to what he approach was.

“It has more to do with our domestic politics than really a foreign policy imperative.”

Leader in The Guardian
Tuesday May 13 2008

Morgan Tsvangirai was right to decide to return to Zimbabwe to contest the second round runoff. His departure, over a month ago, to lobby the governments of southern Africa was initially a shrewd move, and did much to undermine Thabo Mbeki’s attempts to shield his embattled friend Robert Mugabe. But staying away from his homeland, when his supporters were being killed, tortured and chased out of their homes, was a different matter. Had Mr Tsvangirai spent the time instead visiting the war veterans’ victims in their hospital beds, he would have been able to keep the region’s focus on what is happening in Zimbabwe.

The leader of the Movement for Democratic Change is not going back on his own terms. He has failed to achieve a halt to the violence, a new Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), unfettered access for international observers or a peacekeeping force manned by the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). Indeed the justice minister Patrick Chinamasa said yesterday that his country would not allow in election monitors from western countries or the UN until sanctions were lifted.

However, Mr Tsvangirai’s principal handicap is that he has not yet got an assurance about the timing of the run-off. Since he lost control of parliament, Mr Mugabe and the rump of Zanu-PF have been playing for time. The delay allowed them to chase 40,000 farm workers from their homes, kill at least 22 people and torture 900 others, according to the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights.

MDC stalwarts, like the senator and human rights activist David Coltart, say that the violence will not work. Even the massacres of 20,000 people carried out by a North Korean trained army unit in 1985 failed to deter Matabeleland from voting for the opposition, he said. Perhaps it is for this reason that Zanu-PF is still prevaricating. Mr Mugabe can not be sure that he has yet bludgeoned enough of the opposition into submission. The ZEC has yet to set a date for the second round and Zanu-PF has said it could be delayed for up to a year. The SADC must insist that the run-off happens within weeks, not months.

The MDC leader is returning with some advantages. Mr Mugabe no longer has a majority in parliament and if he goes back to ruling by decree, his orders can be annulled. In fact, the opposition is only 30 votes away from the numbers needed for impeachment. Another major task for Mr Mugabe is to find more than 200,000 votes, if he is to overturn the results of the first round. There is, still, all to play for if the run-off is held promptly. It is up to Zimbabwe’s neighbours to ensure that it is. Otherwise, they too will have blood on their hands.