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Mugabe 'orchestrates' violence
09/04/2008 10:55 - (SA)
Harare - Zimbabwe's opposition accused President Robert Mugabe on Tuesday of an orchestrated campaign of violence as militants drove dozens of white farmers off their land, and appealed to African leaders to intervene in Zimbabwe's electoral standoff.
Results of the March 29 presidential elections remained secret 10 days after the vote, with a High Court judge on Tuesday hearing an opposition petition to force their publication. The hearing was to resume on Wednesday.
Mugabe, who had led Zimbabwe for 28 years with an increasingly dictatorial regime, had virtually conceded that he did not win and already appeared to be campaigning for an expected runoff against opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai by intimidating his foes and fanning racial tensions.
Tendai Biti, secretary-general of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change said: "We are concerned by the deafening silence in the region" from the African Union and the Southern African Development Community.
Massive violence
He said: "I say to our brothers and sisters across the continent, don't wait for dead bodies in the streets of Harare."
Biti said there had been "massive violence" since the elections in traditional ruling party strongholds that voted for the opposition. Ruling party militants, used previously to intimidate government opponents, were being rearmed, he said.
"There's been a complete militarisation and a complete rearming of mobs who led the terror in 2000 and 2002," he said of campaigns for parliamentary and presidential elections.
Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu called the claims lies.
There had been "no violence whatsoever", he said. "They are concocting things. It is peaceful."
Reports that people are being beaten up and their homes torched had circulated in the capital in recent days, but could not be confirmed because of the danger of travelling to the areas.
'Everything is at a standstill'
Meanwhile, about 60 white farmers had been forced off their land since Saturday, said Mike Clark, a spokesperson for the Commercial Farmers' Union.
"The situation is escalating very rapidly," said union president Trevor Gifford. The lack of results "has paralysed the country. No one is going to work, everything is at a standstill," Biti said.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Zimbabwe's Electoral Commission to release the election results "expeditiously and with transparency".
Mugabe's ruling party had called for a recount and a further delay in the release of results.
Police said they arrested 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.
The London-based International Bar Association said the arrests "reinforce the suspicion held by many observers that the ruling party is engaged in an elaborate ploy to discredit the entire first round of the presidential election".
- AP
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Zimbabwe Special Report
