Undeterred by opposition boycott, Mugabe terror continues

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has sunk deeper into isolation as African leaders turned against him and called for South African President Thabo Mbeki, his most important protector, to do the same. The Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade and Jacob Zuma, leader of South Africa's ruling ANC, called for the presidential election on June 27 to be postponed following the withdrawal of Mugabe's rival, Morgan Tsvangirai. The calls came in the wake of a UN Security Council statement condemning the violence in Zimbabwe, where scores of people have been killed and tens of thousands displaced in political violence. "The ANC says the run-off is no longer a solution, you need a political arrangement first... then elections down the line," said Zuma, as his party issued a stinging denunciation of "violence, intimidation and outright terror." South Africa has been mediating between Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change and Mugabe's Zanu-PF for a political settlement. Such an agreement will prove harder if Mugabe secures a new term in office. Zambia, Tanzania, Botswana and Angola–the latter one of Mugabe's most reliable allies–have all condemned the Zimbabwean leader with Mbeki left relying on South Africa's "client states"–Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland–for support. On June 23, Tsvangirai submitted his formal withdrawal from the presidential run-off–an 11-page document detailing the manifest unfairness of the poll -- but as authorities said they would press on with the poll there was no let-up in the violence and Mugabe remained defiant. "The West can scream all it wants. Elections will go on. Those who want to recognize our legitimacy can do so, those who don't want, should not," he said. One individual in Harare who receives reports of incidents from across the country said he had been "overwhelmed" by a sudden increase in beatings, abductions and detentions, even in areas which had hitherto been relatively quiet. Scores of people have been admitted to hospitals around Zimbabwe and there are too many people being flogged and mutilated by Zanu-PF mobs for human rights workers to monitor. Ernst Jena, a lawyer working for the MDC in Bindura, about 30 miles north west of Harare, previously a Zanu-PF stronghold but now opposition territory, was abducted from outside his office. "You better watch your back, we can do anything we like until June 27," a Zanu-PF militiaman told a motorist at a roadblock near West Nicholson, about 400 miles south of Harare, which has so far been spared the violence. Almost all the MDC MPs elected in parliamentary polls on Mar. 29 have now gone into hiding, including one who went undercover to work as a servant in a house in Harare. "You never saw a maid with so many mobile phones," said a visitor. "Zanu PF is intensifying its orgy of violence throughout the country despite the MDC's withdrawal from the June 27 presidential run-off," said the MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa. A private school in the second city of Bulawayo was visited by a group of Zanu-PF thugs who challenged teachers and students, telling them they had to vote for Mugabe or face the consequences. "We know we are going to be taken from our homes and forced to vote for Mr. Mugabe on [June 27]," said a white commercial farmer. "We are real targets, so most of us are going to try and be away from home, but we worry about our workers -- they will be dragged and forced to vote for Mugabe, they won't be able to run away, they have nowhere to go." Harare: 'Ring of torture camps' set up in the suburbs Since Zimbabwe's disputed presidential election in March, a steady stream of battered victims of Mugabe's thugs have come into the capital, Harare, telling stories of horrific intimidation in the countryside. But in the past week the violence has arrived on the city's doorstep. "A ring of torture camps has been established on the outskirts of Harare, and gangs of youths are marauding in the high-density suburbs [the former townships that surround the city center]," a resident told the British newspaper The Independent. "They are stopping commuter minibuses and threatening the passengers. Many people are unable to go to work. They are being told to report every night to the camps to be taught how to vote." Even in Harare's relatively prosperous northern suburbs, she added, there were groups of youths on the streets. Other witnesses said gangs of militants, wearing the bandanas and scarves of the Zanu-PF party and carrying sticks and clubs, were manning makeshift roadblocks around Chitungwiza township, south of Harare, where four opposition activists were reportedly killed last week. Party militias and "war veterans" had set up camps in suburban grassland and were frog-marching residents of Chitungwiza and other townships to political meetings ahead of the presidential run-off vote. People were told to stay indoors and avoid traveling by road at night. One human rights group said it was investigating a report that 14 bodies had been found in a single day in the townships around Harare. Another group, Doctors for Human Rights, said the body of a school headmaster had been found in Mutoko district, north-east of the capital, with one eye removed and his genitals severed. The burned body of another, the wife of an opposition local council official south-west of Harare, was found with both feet and a hand removed.