'Vote Mugabe or you die'

Zimbabwe's future looks increasingly perilous after the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) ruled out participating in a run-off election, saying the party had won the presidential election outright in the first round. In an abrupt U-turn, the MDC secretary general Tendai Biti warned on Apr. 10 that any attempt by President Robert Mugabe's regime to stage a run-off election would be a ploy to illegally cling to power and would only heighten the suffering of the Zimbabwean people. Electoral authorities have still not released the results, nearly two weeks after the presidential ballot on Mar. 29. Mugabe is widely believed to have lost to his long-time rival Morgan Tsvangirai, having watched his ruling party lose control of the lower house of parliament for the first time since independence from Britain. Biti accused Mugabe of in effect staging a constitutional coup d'état by remaining in office, and said that a military regime was already in place in Zimbabwe. "We won't participate in any election run-off because we won hands down in the first round," Biti said in Johannesburg. "A new [MDC] government has to get on with the business of governing and not a run-off election determined by the main author of Zimbabwe's miseries. Such a run-off will, in fact, be a run-off over the rights of long-suffering Zimbabweans who have made their electoral preferences very loud and clear." There was also no way in which the MDC could accept and participate in a run-off in Zimbabwe's highly militarized environment in which Mugabe had already intensified a campaign of violence and a siege of terror on defenseless citizens, he went on. The MDC had earlier said it would participate in an election run-off. Biti said the MDC had won an outright majority by a figure higher than the 50.3 percent it earlier claimed, after finding other ballots which had not been accounted for. But independent monitoring agencies say Tsvangirai won by a majority not big enough to avoid a run-off. The future now looks bleak, given the increasingly belligerent stand of the MDC and Zanu-PF, with both sides having ruled out a government of national unity. If electoral authorities order a run-off, as they are most likely to do, and the MDC boycotts it, widespread violence looks inevitable. Even if the MDC can be persuaded to participate, information from Zimbabwe indicates Mugabe is preparing for war to win any second round by violence. In the past few days, he has sent out his supporters to invade remaining white-owned farms, and opposition supporters have been intimidated. Senior army officers have been reportedly deployed in specific areas around the country to lead a campaign of violence against opposition supporters. The patients at Louisa Guidotti hospital said there were eight men, one carrying a shotgun, another with an AK-47, others with pistols, and they went from bed to bed forcing out anyone who could walk. Nurses were dragged away from the sick. Motorists driving by the hospital, 87 miles north-east of Harare, were stopped and taken from their cars. About 70 people were gathered in the grounds. Then the lecture began. "This is your last chance," said one of the armed men. "You messed up when you voted. Next time you vote, you must get it right or you will die." One of the men selected people to stand and shout slogans of the Zanu-PF party and to sing songs from the liberation war. Those who did not do so enthusiastically were beaten. Another cocked his gun and told the crowd to point out opposition supporters. Sandati Kuratidzi lives on the hospital grounds because his wife is a physiotherapist there. He is an MDC activist. When Kuratidzi saw the pick-up with the armed men draw up, he knew what was coming and hid on top of a cupboard. "They warned people that if they voted for the opposition they would be killed. They had AK-47s, shotguns, guns in their belts. People were very afraid," he said. "They were saying they were going to show an example to anyone supporting MDC and they asked the people to point out who they were but no one did. Their behavior was inhuman." Then the men piled back into their truck and set off for the next village. Mugabe has unleashed his shock troops, Zanu-PF's militias and those who call themselves liberation war veterans even though most are too young to have fought it, in an undeclared campaign of terror against rural voters in advance of an expected second round of presidential elections. The ruling party is using results from the first round as a guide to where to exert pressure. Across provinces such as Mashonaland, Manicaland and Matabeleland, where the opposition campaigned freely for the first time and made strong inroads into Zanu-PF's support, armed gangs move from village to village, forcing people to meetings and threatening dire consequences if the vote goes against Mugabe again. Opposition supporters are identified and beaten or driven from their homes. In Gweru, opposition supporters have been attacked by soldiers, according to the Zimbabwe Peace Project. "Soldiers descended on unsuspecting revellers in bars and late night shoppers, beating them up. The soldiers were allegedly saying the people's crime among other things was that they did not vote correctly," said the ZPP. In Mutare, gangs armed with whips and knives have been going house to house in search of MDC supporters. In Manicaland, at least one activist has been killed. In Chimanimani East, opposition supporters have been burned from their homes. In 2005, Mugabe's government demolished the homes of hundreds of thousands of poor people in urban neighborhoods that were strongholds of the political opposition. And last year, the police rounded up dozens of opposition figures, including Tsvangirai, beating and arresting them. The opposition said this persecution was happening again in rural areas where there were no witnesses but the victims. Nelson Chamisa, a spokesman for the MDC, said on Apr. 8 that about 200 of its polling agents, campaign workers and supporters had been arrested, beaten or kidnapped since the election. The government's information minister, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, denied the charges, telling The Associated Press: "They are concocting things. It is peaceful."