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MDC: Flesh melted off bones
07/07/2008 14:59 - (SA)
Johannesburg - As G8 leaders began meeting in Japan on Monday for talks on issues including Zimbabwe, the country's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) repeated its demands for an end to political violence as a condition for entering talks with President Robert Mugabe on a unity government.
Releasing gruesome photographs of the burnt body of a man the MDC said was its missing driver Joshua Bakacheza, the party asked: "How does a self respecting party enter into negotiations within the context of such level of violence?"
The MDC said Bakacheza was abducted in the Zimbabwean capital Harare by 16-armed men in three trucks nearly two weeks ago.
He was abducted along with another MDC activist, Tendai Chidziwo, who was later found on a farm and rushed to hospital with serious head injuries.
The photographs circulated by the MDC on Monday showed the body of a man whose trunk was so badly burnt the flesh had melted off the bones, revealing his rib cage.
Mugabe inaugurated as president
According to the MDC, more than 10 of its supporters had been killed by pro-Mugabe youth militia since Zimbabwe's controversial June 27 presidential election, which the MDC, the West and a handful of African countries had denounced as illegitimate.
Mugabe was inaugurated as president for a sixth term after running uncontested in the election run-off that Tsvangirai boycotted over political violence.
The latest MDC fatalities brought to more than 100 the number of opposition followers killed by Mugabe supporters since the first round of voting for president on March 29 that Tsvangirai won.
As G8 leaders prepared to discuss the Zimbabwean impasse, for which the African Union had prescribed a Kenya-style unity government, the MDC repeated on Monday that it would not recognise Mugabe as president, a condition Mugabe gave last week for talks on sharing power.
"MDC does not recognise the 27th of June 'event' and accordingly does not recognise the outcome, thereof," the MDC said in a statement, calling again for its March 29 victory to be the basis for the talks.
At the weekend Tsvangirai boycotted talks with Mugabe brokered by South African President Thabo Mbeki, southern Africa's mediator in Zimbabwe. The leader of a smaller MDC faction, Arthur Mutambara, was in attendance.
Party spokesperson Nelson Chamisa said Tsvangirai ducked the meeting because the MDC's conditions for talks had not been met.
Sapa-dpa
- SAPA
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Zimbabwe Special Report
