WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2008-04-20 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
By Fred Kockott
Tapiwa Mubwanda – a 55-year-old election agent and organiser for Zimbabwe’s Movement of Democratic Change – might not have been murdered had foreign and regional election observers not pulled out of Zimbabwe prematurely.
This is the verdict of various Zimbabwe civic leaders, who are calling for urgent deployment of international, regional and local peace monitors to ensure the safety of people in Zimbabwe until a new government is properly installed, as elected through the polls on March 29.
And in a clarion call to civil society to act, former veteran anti-apartheid activist, and coordinator of the Zimbabwe Crisis Coalition, Elinor Sisulu, on Saturday called on editors throughout the region, particularly in South Africa, to petition the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) and the African Union to also facilitate unrestricted media access and coverage in Zimbabwe.
“There has to be scrutiny of what’s happening. That is the first answer to the crisis. Lives will be saved,” said Sisulu.
Sisulu said nobody could describe the election process in Zimbabwe as normal when people like Mubwanda were being killed. “How many more people must die before our leaders publicly acknowledge that there is state-sponsored violence targeting defenceless and vulnerable people in Zimbabwe?” asked Sisulu.
“We are dealing here with planned violence, orchestrated at the highest levels of government and the military establishment. There are mountains of evidence of this,” said Sisulu.
Mubwanda is reported to be the first murder victim of a brutal campaign targeting people – many in isolated rural areas – who did not vote for Zanu-PF candidates in the elections, the final results of which are still awaited 21 days after people cast their votes.
The campaign, “Operation Mavhoterapapi” – “who did you vote for?” or “where did you put your cross?” – has allegedly been orchestrated at the highest levels of Zimbabwean government and directed by senior military officers.
Warnings of pending violence were widely distributed last week, complete with lists naming majors, colonels and lieutenants expected to be deployed in constituencies, some allegedly under the guise of being war veterans.
The brief, said Zimbabwe sources monitoring these developments, was to engage so-called war-veterans, unemployed thugs and Zanu-PF youth militia into bludgeoning people into submitting to Zanu-PF authority and ensuring the party is victorious in an anticipated presidential election run-off.
“They vowed to go to war if Mugabe was defeated at the polls, and that is what is happening,” said one monitor.
“They have already started; it’s down to the wire,” agreed Takurra Zhangazha, the Harare director of the Media Institute of Southern African.
“We know what Mugabe is seeking – retaliation.”
“The SADC observer mission must be back like yesterday, with even more people to deploy wherever they can, especially in rural areas,” urged Zhangazha.
Already, the Association of Doctors for Human Rights had documented 242 cases of organised violence and torture, as of Friday, including severe injuries inflicted on a relative of Mubwanda who had tried in vain to protect his family.
Director of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, Irene Petras, said the departure of election observers before results had been announced had precipitated the crisis.
She said the early departure had happened amid fears of post-election rigging and associated retributive violence against members of the opposition in the event of a run-off presidential election.
“They are not now able to witness what is happening,” said Petras. “They should be here with us while we as civic organisations are now having to provide services to victims – legal services, medical assistance. There is complicity of military personnel. These cases are being well documented, not only by us, but by a number of organisations, and complaints made to police and the minister of home affairs. But there is no willingness to stop it all, and bring the perpetrators to book.”
Petras said the absence of any condemnation from SADC heads of state was only contributing to this impunity.
Addressing a Durban audience on Thursday night, the eve of the 28th anniversary of Zimbabwe’s independence, Zimbabwean civic leader and ordinator of the National Constitutional Assembly, Tapera Kapuya, called on the SADC to heed the will of Zimbabwe’s people.
“Mugabe is a spent force. He is expiring like the Zim dollar,” said Kapuya.
“Zimbabwe is in political transition. Whatever happens in the next couple of days, that transition has started.”
MDC representative Nqobizitha Mlilo, who attended last weekend’s special Sadc summit on Zimbabwe that Mugabe avoided, was upbeat, and said irrespective of the violence being unleashed, there was no turning the tide of change Zimbabweans had voted for.
But such declarations from seminar podiums around South Africa have not allayed fears that more murders are likely before Sadc leaders start acting in the interests of Zimbabweans who cast their votes on March 29 – so far to no avail.
“These are unnecessary deaths,” said Sisulu, who said the crisis cannot be left to Sadc leaders to address without input from civil society.
“We’ve got here an extremely violent and repressive state apparatus, run by a criminal coterie of hangers-on, their livelihoods dependent on state patronage, yet our our government, and President Thabo Mbeki have never even acknowledged that human rights violations have taken place in Zimbabwe,” said Sisulu.