JOHN Makumbe . . . Mugabe always resorts to dirty tricks when cornered

By Justin Muponda

HARARE – Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party on Monday accused the government of sponsoring recent acts of violence, including petrol-bombing incidences, to justify a major crackdown on the resurgent party. 

The police have accused the MDC of leading a “militia-style” campaign of violence to topple President Robert Mugabe from power, charges the opposition party rejected. 

“There is no reason why the MDC should target innocent civilians because we have chosen a non-violent struggle,” said Nelson Chamisa, spokesman of the Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC. 

“It is the government that is trying to provoke the people into anarchy. They are at the centre of this terrorism, it is state sponsored terrorism,” added Chamisa. 

Tensions are running high in the southern African state fueled by an acute economic crisis – critics blame on mismanagement by Mugabe – and that has seen poverty levels rising and inflation soaring to world record levels. 

The MDC, which has been weakened by internal fights, has in the past two months re-emerged to confront Mugabe over the deteriorating economy, which has set it on a collision course with the government. 

Police brutally stopped an MDC and civic groups prayer rally this month, injuring Tsvangirai and several opposition politicians, which exposed Harare’s poor human rights record and drew strong international condemnation. The United States and Britain have warned of stiffer sanctions against Mugabe. 

But the government says it is the MDC that is in fact responsible for rising political violence in the country as well as the petrol bombing of three police stations, a passenger train and a supermarket in Harare at the weekend. 

The police said this was part of the MDC’s “militia-style” violence and said they were tracking down opposition activists suspected of being behind the bombings. 

But Chamisa said the bombings that took place in Harare and in the cities of Gweru and Mutare were orchestrated by the government as a pretext to justify intensifying its violent crackdown on opponents. 

Political analysts said Mugabe had since coming to power at Zimbabwe’s independence from Britain in 1980 sought every excuse to clamp down on opponents whenever in trouble. 

They pointed to the arms cache incident in Matabeleland during the early years of independence, which saw the government’s North Korean Fifth Brigade unleashing a terror campaign against the minority Ndebele tribe in the south of the country that did not back his ZANU PF party. 

More than 20 000 mostly innocent Ndebele civilians were killed during the military crackdown. 

Mugabe also plotted treason charges against his former leader, the late Ndabaningi Sithole while Tsvangirai was accused of plotting to assassinate Mugabe with the help of a discredited Canadian public relations consultant. 

The High Court freed Tsvangirai because the state could not prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. 

The MDC was four years ago also accused of murdering prominent ZANU PF activist and former liberation war fighter Cain Nkala although the murder case crumbled spectacularly when it started to emerge that colleagues in the ruling party could have killed him. 

“The violence cases have the hallmarks of ZANU PF, I am quite sure the intelligence people are behind all this to discredit the MDC. It has always been Mugabe’s strategy to resort to dirty tactics when in trouble,” John Makumbe, a political analyst and strong Mugabe critic said. 

Chamisa said Mugabe had been shocked by the MDC’s resurgence this year after it split into two opposing factions in October 2005 following differences over strategies to tackle ZANU PF. 

The MDC has led a campaign to stop Mugabe from extending his rule by two more years to 2010, a plan that was also rejected by the veteran leader’s allies in his ZANU PF party. But Mugabe has once again stirred controversy by announcing he intends to run in a presidential election next year. 

The opposition accuses the 83-year old Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence, of massive vote fraud since 2000 but the veteran leader says he has won smartly. He has of late accused the MDC of resorting to violence saying this was because the opposition party had failed in elections. 

Chamisa said Zimbabweans were too pre-occupied with trying to survive the economic crisis, to waste scarce fuel (in short supply in the country) on petrol bombs targeting innocent civilians. He said it was the government which had the expertise and resources to carry out such acts of terror. 

“We are a political party and not a rebel movement. Mugabe is using sterile and exhausted strategies, the people know this,” said Chamisa. “They (government) are trying to justify repression. They are desperate and dangerous that is why they are trying to create a victim image out of a monster.” - ZimOnline