New claims of abuses in Zim

2005-01-18 14:54

London - A British newspaper reported on Tuesday that it had received fresh evidence of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe by pro-government supporters ahead of parliamentary elections.

The Guardian daily said photographs taken by an activist show evidence of intimidation and violence against opposition figures. It published one of the pictures, showing a woman with burns who was reportedly doused in paraffin and set alight.

The Zimbabwean High Commission in London dismissed the claims in The Guardian story. "It's a highly opinionated article which doesn't contain any facts at all," said Godfrey Magwenzi, the deputy high commissioner.

President Robert Mugabe, who has led Zimbabwe since independence in 1980, has used police and other security forces to harass opponents and journalists and deployed state-controlled militias of youths and so-called war veterans to violently suppress any form of dissent.

Dismissed criticism

Mugabe and his government have dismissed criticism of his regime as part of a campaign by Western governments, particularly Britain and the United States, to undermine Zimbabwe, where parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place in March.

The Guardian said the photographs documented violence against supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change by youth militia groups sympathetic to Mugabe's governing ZANU-PF party, the police and state agents.

The paper said one of the photos showed Tabeth Shoniwa, the chair of an MDC constituency group, a few days after she had been doused in paraffin and set on fire. The paper said Shoniwa was in hiding following the attack in October.

The Guardian said the activist who took the photos spent a year documenting abuses by pro-government supporters in Zimbabwe. It said it passed the pictures to London-based human rights group Amnesty International.

No one was immediately available at Amnesty on Tuesday morning for comment on The Guardian report.

Magwenzi, the Zimbabwean deputy high commissioner, said he wasn't surprised that Guardian reporter Andrew Meldrum had written the article.

Meldrum, one of the two authors of the story, was expelled from Zimbabwe in 2003 after the government failed in an attempt to try him for defying stringent media laws.

- AP