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Zanu-PF 'creating ballot papers'
20/04/2008 21:08 - (SA)
Harare - Zimbabwe resembles a war-zone, with thousands of people displaced, hundreds injured and 10 killed by post-election violence, an opposition leader said on Sunday as he appealed for international intervention.
Tendai Biti, secretary-general of the Movement for Democratic Change, said violence since March 29 elections had forced 3 000 families out of their homes. Hundreds of people had been hospitalised with injuries and 10 people killed, he said.
Biti said humanitarian agencies present in Zimbabwe must be mobilised.
"They should move as a matter of urgency. They should move because Zimbabwe is a war zone," he told a news conference in Johannesburg.
He said key members of the opposition's administration had been arrested.
"We are not able to function because of those arrests," he said. Biti and MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai say they cannot return to Zimbabwe as they face immediate arrest.
Recount
Electoral officials on Saturday began recounting ballots for a few 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.
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 Corp 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.
Biti said Mugabe was desperate.
"He can delay... but he will go," Biti said. "He hasn't stolen this election. We are still fighting."
Torture and violence
The opposition released a detailed list of its supporters who had been injured and killed since the elections. Many had their homes destroyed by ruling party thugs and youth militias, it said. It said a feared government minister, Didymus Mutasa, and army chiefs were involved in instigating the violence and training militias.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said Saturday that "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.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was expected to discuss the Zimbabwe crisis with other African leaders on the sidelines of a five-day UN trade meeting which opened Sunday in Ghana.
Tsvangirai, who is trying to muster more diplomatic support in Africa, was due to travel to Nigeria and then Ghana and hoped to meet Ban.
'Where are the Africans?'
Former UN chief Kofi Annan, himself an African who recently helped broker a peace deal after Kenya's contested elections, on Saturday 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.
"It's a serious crisis that will impact beyond Zimbabwe and we do have a responsibility to work with them to find a viable solution," said Annan, who met with Biti on Friday.
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