Political violence casts doubts on poll validity

Hatcliffe Extension, a squatter camp 25 km northeast of Harare, is just like so many other poor locations in Zimbabwe, and Tichaona Katsamudengu was fairly typical of one of its residents. But in a country polarised by politics, anonymity has become a luxury. On 28 January, a Mazda car pulled up alongside the 24-year old Katsamudengu as he walked from Hatcliffe clinic to his home. The people in the car demanded that Katsamudengu tell them the names of all officials of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the area, and when the opposition party was planning to hold meetings. When Katsamudengu could not provide the information, the men got out of the car and assaulted him. "They beat him up and then forced him to swallow a herbal mixture which caused him severe diarrhoea. Katsamudengu eventually died on February 4 at the Avenues clinic in Harare," said Francis Lovemore, head of the clinical department at Amani Trust, a Harare-based non-governmental organisation that has led research into political violence and torture in Zimbabwe Walter Chikwere, a resident of Hatcliffe extension went to school with Katsamudengu. "His murder has shocked us, fear rules this place now," he told IRIN. With just three weeks to go before Zimbabwe's watershed presidential election, rising political violence and killings have induced a deep sense of insecurity. Incumbent President Robert Mugabe faces opposition MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai in the make-or-break poll. For the 77-year-old Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980, it represents his toughest political contest yet, in which his reputation, legacy, and perhaps the future of his party is on the line. However, the climate of intimidation casts doubt on whether the 9-10 March ballot can be free and fair. "We are now living in fear," Tarcey Zimbiti, the acting director of the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) told IRIN. "Everyone, including myself, we all do not feel secure anymore. You can never be sure what will happen to you tomorrow," Zimbiti said. The Zimbabwe Human Rights Non-Governmental Organisation Forum (ZHRF), blaming most of the violence on ruling ZANU-PF militants out to ensure Mugabe is re-elected in March, said last week that political violence had intensified across the country. The ZHRF, an umbrella body of nine of the largest human rights and democracy advocacy groups in the country, said 16 people, most of them opposition supporters, were killed in political violence in January alone, setting a new monthly record. The MDC says more than 100 of its supporters have been killed to date in political violence since February 2000 when the government lost a national referendum on a new constitution for the country. The arrival of advance teams of election observers - including those from the European Union which has threatened sanctions if the election is not free and fair - has so far had little effect. Both state controlled and independent media report fresh cases of bloodshed every day. But despite the apparent evidence, police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena told IRIN that according to his records political violence was actually down. He added that a new Public Order and Security Act - condemned by critics as draconian - gave the police all the power they needed to guarantee the safety of Zimbabweans in the run-up to the elections. But Chikwere said neither the police - widely seen as partisan - nor the new public order law has given him and his family in Hatfield any better sense of security. "It seems nobody cares about us poor people. To tell the truth everyone feels so vulnerable. Even now I am afraid to talk because I really do not know who you are or what you want this information for," he told IRIN. Chikwere said he and many of his neighbours had bought ZANU-PF party cards as a safety measure to avoid meeting the same fate as Katsamudengu. He also attends party rallies to avoid being marked out as an opposition supporter. "This is our only safety," he said waving a brand new ZANU-PF membership card.