Zimbabwe Democracy Now

Last weekend Robert Mugabe called for an end to violence, stating that people should promote “the values and practice of tolerance, respect, non-violence and dialogue as a means of resolving political differences.”  However, Zimbabweans warn that it’s clearly business as usual for Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs.

On Monday, Biti, who is also the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Secretary General, received a live bullet in a letter – a trademark Zanu PF death threat.  The letter told Biti to “sort out his estate”.

Since Biti viewed the threat seriously, he reported the incident to the police.  Ironically, the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), which is tasked with protecting cabinet ministers, has taken charge of the investigations.

Rewind to March 1, 2007, the date on which The Zimbabwean newspaper released the news that the CIO had compiled a hit-list of 50 opposition politicians, civil society leaders, lawyers and journalists.

Intelligence sources told The Zimbabwean that the list included Tendai Biti and MDC spokesperson Nelson Chamisa, as well as human rights lawyer Arnold Tsunga and Lovemore Madhuku, chairman of the National Constitutional Assembly.

In an interview with SW Radio Africa a year later on April 26, 2008, Biti discussed the hit list and described the situation in Zimbabwe as a “war zone”.  He told the interviewer, Violet Gonda, that he had been in prison ever year since 2000, including 2007 after the vicious attacks on people assembling for the March 11 Save Zimbabwe prayer meeting.

On March 18, a week after the carnage, Chamisa was brutally attacked on his way to Harare international airport to catch a flight to Brussels where he was scheduled to attend EU-ACP meetings.

Sources monitoring Biti’s latest death threat believe that Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa is involved. Mnangagwa is said to be furious over Biti’s declaration that he would seek to overhaul the country’s mineral laws. Together with his notorious business partner Billy Rautenbach, Mnangagwa is reported to have embarked on a strategy to take over the country’s 600 mines involving various dubious deals.

Mnangagwa, known by his supporters as Ngwena (The Crocodile), was one of two security ministers who presided over operations during Gukurahundi, when more than 20 000 people were massacred in Matabeleland in the early 1980s.
Back to the current wave of violence.  On the evening of Wednesday July 22, the mother of Nqobizitha Mlilo, a top aide to Biti, was attacked in her small home town of Mvuma.

Mrs Athanancia Mlilo, a 63-year-old nurse, was savagely beaten over the head with an iron bar and left for dead. Friends who rushed to her aid saved her life and she was taken to hospital where she received 25 stitches to her head.

Mlilo believes the attack was politically motivated and that Mnangagwa’s thugs may have been responsible.  Mnangagwa is currently the Zanu PF MP for Mvuma-Zivangwe.

People in the constituency had earlier warned Mlilo that he could be on a collision course with Mnangagwa who is well known for dealing ruthlessly with his political opponents.

Also during the three days of “peace and national healing” last week, an MDC-T activist, Ebba Katiyo from Uzumba, a village in Mashonaland East, was battling life-threatening injuries inflicted by Zanu PF supporters a few days earlier.

In Mutoko East, the air force tried to intimidate 10 000 supporters attending an MDC weekend rally.  An air force helicopter was flown in and hovered so low over the crowd that one of the crew was actually identified.

The officer, a man called Manhanga, is known to have worked under the command of Bramwell Katsvairo who spearheaded violence in Mashonaland East province during the Presidential run-off election in June last year.

Zimbabweans are anxious that the leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), who underwrote the Global Political Agreement which led to the formation of the transitional government, take the escalating violence very seriously.

They believe the strategy is two-fold:  firstly to force them to agree to the Kariba draft constitution, which would allow Mugabe to serve a further two terms in office, and secondly to intimidate the country ahead of the next elections. Although a date has not been set, it is believed that Mugabe is already strategising for March next year.

Earlier this month, the Zanu PF Minister of Youth Development, Empowerment and Indigenisation, Saviour Kasukuwere, said plans were at an advanced stage for the reopening of youth “training centres” (militia camps) across the country.

Kasukuwere admitted openly that Zanu PF deployed militias to spearhead its violent election campaign last year that left hundreds of opposition supporters dead.

A known CIO operative, Kasukuwere has been linked to the car accident in which Mrs Susan Tsvangirai was killed earlier this year on March 6. Kasukuwere was also a ringleader in the violent disruption on July 13 of the All-Stakeholders’ Conference aimed at drafting a new national constitution.