MORGAN Tsvangirai . . . tops new government-compiled hit list

By Brian Ncube

BULAWAYO - Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai tops a fresh hit list of 300 opposition and civic activists drawn up by state security commanders for arrest and torture in a drive to weaken the opposition ahead of next year’s election. 

The list, whose disclosure comes as President Robert Mugabe on Wednesday vowed to intensify a brutal crackdown against the opposition, was drawn up by the Joint Operations Command (JOC) at a meeting on the 5th of April in Harare. 

The JOC, a committee of securocrats upon whom analysts say Mugabe has increasingly relied in recent years, comprises senior commanders of the army, air force, police, prison service and the spy Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO). 

The list, a copy of which was shown to ZimOnline, says police sent to break up opposition rallies and protests should aim to shoot the 10 leading figures on the hit list. But it does not specifically say whether the police should shoot to kill or merely to inflict injury. 

"The top 10 are very dangerous individuals who should be attacked by unknown assailants in public places or their homes in cases that are linkable to armed robbery and road accidents. They can also be shot by riot police during public upheavals that they always want to create,” the list reads in part. 

One Assistant Commissioner Mabunda of the police’s law and order section will lead a team of detectives that will keep the opposition and civic society activists under 24-hour surveillance. The police team will randomly arrest the activists mostly on trumped up charges before handing them over to the CIO for torture, under the JOC plan.   

Those in the top 10 of the hit list in their order include Tsvangirai, spokesman of his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party Nelson Chamisa, Bulawayo-based Roman Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube, Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions secretary general Wellington Chibhebhe and Tsvangirai’s deputy Thokozani Khuphe. 

Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe Raymond Majongwe, women activists Grace Kwinjeh and Jenni Williams and St Mary's legislator Job Sikhala are also in the top 10. 

Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena dismissed the existence of a hit list, saying the law enforcement agency only arrested people suspected of committing crime and who would have to be taken to court. 

He said: "We do not work on hit lists, we are not a mafia gang that eliminates people. We only arrest criminals that we later on send to the courts where they are tried according to the legal statues of this country." 

State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa denied security agencies were targeting opposition activists for arrest, accusing MDC activists of “lying at every point” that they were being victimised by state agents. 

But Chamisa said the MDC had always suspected government agents were targeting its top leaders for harassment and possible elimination. He said: "It has been clear to us that they have always tried to eliminate the top leaders of the party. This has always been this regime’s strategy of dealing with the opposition and government critics.” 

The government last month launched a brutal crackdown on Tsvangirai and his MDC party, accusing it of waging a campaign of petrol bomb attacks against police stations and other government establishments in a bid to topple Mugabe from power. 

Mugabe on Wednesday told supporters at Independence Day celebrations in Harare that his government would “never hesitate to deal firmly with those elements who are bent on fomenting anarchy,” a reference to the MDC which he accuses of trying to topple his government on behalf of Zimbabwe's former colonial master, Britain. 

The MDC, which says Mugabe and his ruling ZANU PF party cheated it of victory in successive elections since 2000, denies being a puppet of Britain or masterminding bomb attacks on police stations.  The MDC says the bomb attacks were the work of government agents out to justify a crackdown aimed at annihilating the opposition party ahead of elections next year. - ZimOnline