http://www.thenewstribune.com/24hour/world/story/2183355p-10282437c.html

Zimbabwean leader turns to military to ensure re-election

By TERRY LEONARD, Associated Press Writer
Saturday, February 26th, 2005 04:39 AM (PST)


JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has increasingly turned to hard-line military commanders to cow his factious country and now is relying on them to ensure a ruling party triumph in March 31 parliamentary elections.
He appointed a former colonel to run the new Election Commission last month and passed laws that placed the army in charge of polling stations and allows military officers to serve as election officials.

Analysts said it follows a trend in recent years of militarizing Zimbabwean society. Mugabe clings to power, they said, by placing men who unflinchingly follow orders in charge of strategic industries and ministries, the secret police, justice system, youth militias and food and fuel distribution.

"The strategy is to get people in key positions that share the hard-line attitudes of the government," Lovemore Madhuku, the chairman of the National Constitutional Assembly, an opposition coalition of churches and unions, said in a telephone interview.

"You appoint the military because they follow orders. They will do what is required," Madhuku said.

Senior military officers are closely aligned politically to Mugabe, a strongman who has led this country since independence in 1980s, and many have lucrative business ties to ruling party stalwarts.

"Mugabe has never been comfortable with people not in the military. As his popularity has progressively declined, he has run back to the military for his own protection," said University of Zimbabwe political scientist John Makumbe. This proclivity became more pronounced this winter as the ruling party fractured in December from political infighting.

"He is a frightened man," said Makumbe, speaking by telephone from the United States, where he is a guest lecturer at Michigan State University. "The infighting shook him greatly. His party is weaker than ever before, more vulnerable. It has enemies without and now seemingly enemies within."

To shore up military support, troops recently received raises of up to 1,400 percent, said Makumbe.

He said Mugabe has also given large commercial farms confiscated by the government from white farmers to top officers. The army and police services also purged and punished thousands in junior ranks suspected of supporting Mugabe's opponents.

The upcoming elections "will take place under the most repressive laws in our history. Not a single electoral body is impartial," said David Coltart, a spokesman for the Movement for Democratic Change, the main opposition party.

In a troubling sign for the opposition, members of the Green Bombers, the government youth militia, are being incorporated into security forces and will run polling stations, said Makumbe. The State Department has accused the group of beating and torturing opposition supporters into submission under direction of state officials.

Also, prosecutors around the country, directed by former colonel and new Attorney General Sobuza Gula-Ndebele, are seeking to reinstate charges dropped against opposition activists for lack of evidence.

Nearly all the charges stem from alleged violations of the draconian Public Order and Security Act, a law prohibiting political meetings or discussions without prior police approval that is rarely granted to the opposition.

Meanwhile, George Chiweshe, a former colonel and veteran of the independence war, was picked to run the new Electoral Commission.

Opposition party spokesman Paul Themba Nyathi said the party has serious reservations about Chiweshe's impartiality and independence.

That's not surprising.

During the last presidential election in 2002, Mugabe was declared the narrow winner in voting independent observers called deeply flawed by intimidation, violence and massive vote rigging.

Just before that vote, another military man, Gen. Vitalis Zvinavashe, said in a statement widely condemned both in Africa and abroad that the country's military and secret police would not accept an opposition victory. Some junior officers later acknowledged to human rights investigators that they had been forced to stuff ballot boxes for the ruling party and the president.


Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Mickey,
Just a dumb question but how heavy is that Copyright Statement at the bottom of the pile?

quote:

Originally posted by Dungbeetle:
Mickey,
Just a dumb question but how heavy is that Copyright Statement at the bottom of the pile?

Huh? Who? What? Where?

Mickey's real name is Mr A. Press. Didn't you know.

***

Maybe Mbeki can send some "observers" to this election to learn how to run a successful black African election.

No the UN is a totally powerless entity. They will not attack one of their own. The leaders of the UN seem to have no back bone re another black leader. Too bad. If Arnold could be president he might just say "Asta La Vista Baybe" The constitution will prevent that from happening but will not prevent Ms Clinton from residing in the whitehouse. Only you can prevent idiots in the whitehouse. Or maybe we can't. Sorry my political frustrations show their ugly heads. Good hunting.

U.S. Warns SADC Over Zimbabwe Inaction


The Daily News (Harare)
February 25, 2005


The continued inaction on Zimbabwe by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) is putting at risk future increases in economic aid to the economic bloc, the United States has warned.

The US ambassador to South Africa, Jendayi Frazer, criticised SADC for folding its hands while Zimbabwe, a member state, continues to violate agreed protocols on free and fair elections in the region.

The ambassador also said the US administration has never threatened to invade Zimbabwe, despite labeling President Robert Mugabe's regime an "outpost of tyranny".

President Mugabe's Zanu PF government is widely accused of harassing supporters of the main opposition political party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and intimidating independent and foreign journalists ahead of a crucial election to be held on March 31.

In attacking SADC for inaction against President Mugabe, Frazer said there was "a marked difference" in how the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) had dealt with the situation in Togo and how SADC members were responding to Zimbabwe.

Last week, members of the west African regional grouping imposed sanctions on Togo, which included the country's suspension from membership of Ecowas, the recall of ambassadors, a travel ban on Togolese leaders and an arms embargo.

The imposition of sanctions came after Ecowas said that the change in Togo's constitution to appoint Faure Gnassingbe was a coup d'etat.

Frazer was addressing at the South African Institute of International Affairs in Johannesburg on US foreign policy on Africa when she made the remarks about Zimbabwe.

Frazer said that because "Zimbabwe clearly stands out" it was difficult to those in the US government who favoured more aid to Africa to argue the case in Washington.

US statements on Zimbabwe have become more strident since US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice grouped the country among six that she categorised as "outposts of tyranny".

Rice named Zimbabwe alongside Iran, Cuba, Myanmar, North Korea and Belarus as outposts of tyranny.

But Frazer said: "We do not seek to install a US-style democracy in Zimbabwe or anywhere else for that matter. The United States has no fight, no right, no desire and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else," she said.

Frazer said Rice's comments on Zimbabwe were "not to threaten an invasion". Rice's comments were "a statement of fact" about the way in which Mugabe's government treated its people, she said.

"The United States will continue to stand with the people of Zimbabwe in their struggle to return democracy to their country," Frazer said.

The placing of Zimbabwe on Washington's list of six renegade countries has drawn criticism from South African President Thabo Mbeki, who said Rice's comments "discredited" her country's proclaimed policy of promoting political freedom around the world.

"I think it's an exaggeration," Mbeki said in this week's interview with London's Financial Times. "I think that whatever (the US) government wants to do with regard to that list of six countries, or however many, I think it's really somewhat discredited."

However, Frazer said Mbeki's view, which he explained to Frazer immediately after making it, was that "Zimbabwe is not a tyranny like the other countries in the category".

"We would not agree with that. We think that Zimbabwe and the Zanu-PF government have created a repressive environment in which there is no level playing field," Frazer said.

"From the lead-up to the 2002 election through to today, the opposition cannot operate freely, they still have laws ... that would not allow people to have freedom of assembly... We would call it an environment of tyranny and repression. We will agree to disagree."

The US supported governments that answered to their citizens and respected basic, fundamental human rights.

"Where we see human rights abuses, we will say so publicly. We will speak out and we will speak out loudly," she said.