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Mugabe militants 'target' whites
08/04/2008 08:33 - (SA)
Harare - Militant supporters of President Robert Mugabe have targeted whites, forcing about a dozen ranchers and farmers off their land as Zimbabwe's longtime ruler fanned racial tensions amid fears he will turn to violence to hold on to power.
Mugabe's opponents pressed a lawsuit seeking to compel the publication of results of the March 29 presidential election that they said Morgan Tsvangirai won.
The opposition leader urged the international community to persuade Mugabe to step down.
"Major powers here, such as South Africa, the United States and Britain, must act to remove the white-knuckle grip of Mugabe's suicidal reign and oblige him and his minions to retire," Tsvangirai wrote in Monday's edition of Britain's Guardian newspaper.
He asked: "How can global leaders espouse the values of democracy, yet when they are being challenged fail to open their mouths?"
Zuma pans Mbeki's 'quiet diplomacy'
Tsvangirai was in South Africa meeting with "important people" on Monday, said Tendai Biti, secretary-general of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
He met with Jacob Zuma, president of the country's governing African National Congress, according to spokesperson Jessie Duarte. Both Duarte and Biti declined to give details.
Zuma had criticised South African President Thabo Mbeki's policy of "quiet diplomacy" toward Zimbabwe until his election to lead the ANC, when he voiced support for that policy.
Mbeki, who mediated failed pre-election talks between Tsvangirai's and Mugabe's parties, was out of the country.
A Zimbabwe court postponed until Tuesday an expected ruling on an opposition petition demanding the release of the presidential election results. Mugabe's ruling party had called for a recount and a further delay in the release of results.
Authoritarian rule
Police reported the arrests of five electoral officials on charges of tampering with election results, giving Mugabe some 4 993 votes less than were cast for him, The Herald newspaper reported on Tuesday. The paper said the alleged fraud took place in four districts.
After an increasingly authoritarian rule during 28 years in power, Mugabe had virtually conceded he did not win, and was already campaigning for an expected runoff against Tsvangirai on a platform of intimidation of his foes and exploitation of racial tensions.
During a talk at a funeral on Sunday, the president urged Zimbabweans to defend land seized from white farmers in recent years, the state-controlled Herald newspaper said.
"This is our soil and the soil must never go back to the whites," Mugabe said, referring to whites by the pejorative Shona term "mabhunu," the Herald reported.
He spoke as militants began invading more white farms and demanding the owners leave. Such land seizures started in 2000 as Mugabe's response to his first defeat at the polls - a loss in a referendum on measures designed to entrench his presidential powers.
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